A Clash of Sky and Steam, the Equestrian Great War
by clowdy
Summary: Hundreds of years after Celestia's death, the great war has started between pegasi and earth ponies. Will the advantage of flight grant pegasi victory , or will the earth ponies and their steam driven war machines prevail. Good story if you like steampunk
1. History leads itself back to war

**Hi everyone this is my first fanfic so hope its good, please review and I will have more chapters up later. First chapter is just intro, make sure to review. Rated T for violence, swearing, and some suggestive themes later on.**

**Preface: Hi, so some of you reading this now may be wondering, what is steampunk, well there is no set definition so I will give you mine but first a little history lesson. Steampunk usually revolves around the victorian era, a period of human history from 1837 to 1901 also known as the industrial revolution. During this time the steam engine was popularized, steam trains connected nations and steam powered factories created the first mass produced goods while gears and various forms of clockwork were used to run machines. There was a massive gap between the rich aristocratic factory owners and the poor factory workers or proletariat. Now here is where we get to my definition, some people think of steampunk as dressing up in strange victorian era clothes with crazy geared things that dont actually work and just look strange, that is not me, I think of steampunk from an anthropological perspective, one simple idea, " what if steam power had gone into use beyond the victorian era instead of the internal combustion engine." this was a perspective often taken by many a science fiction writer from the victorian era, they assumed that steam power would continue on, and wrote stories of what they thought the steam powered future would be like. From this perspective and my love of military history and MLP I have created this story of war involving incredible steam powered warmachines, including of course, MLP, enjoy.**

**Chapter 1. History leads itself back to war.**

Equestria is much different now than it was before, it is no longer filled with such happiness and innocence as before. After the death of Celestia and Luna much changed, with no central controlling monarchy provided by the alicorns a hierarchy was created by the unicorns. They used their magic to create powerful machines for many uses which the pegasi and earth ponies couldn't use without magic. The other types of pony became slave labor for the unicorns which ruled from canterlot and kept the rest of the population under their iron hoof. These were dark days but from the resentment harbored in the hearts of the other ponies a revolution was formed. There were many battles with the unicorns magic powered machines fighting with enslaved ponies. Pegasi were instrumental in these battles as the unicorns had not yet discovered aerodynamics and had no way to counter the fliers. In the end the pegasi and earth ponies triumphed and many unicorns fled from Equestria (a nation not a planet) and to the unsettled regions further south. Those that remained were brutally slaughtered in the worst execution in the history of ponykind.

After the war the pegasi and earth ponies went separate ways, the earth ponies settled further south of the pegasi below the river which ran from the regal mountains, the mountains canterlot was situated on, which had previously divided Equestria, known as Bark river, while the pegasi took the area north of the river. The earth ponies controlled the cities of Baltimare, Ponyville, and Manehattan which became the capital. The Pegasi took Phillydelphia, las Pegasus, cloudsdale of course, and canterlot. There was much dispute over canterlot but it was given to the pegasi because they had fought much more in the fight to take that city. However the pegasi agreed not to control the earth ponies weather and allow them to have seasonal natural weather. Both sides agreed not to meddle in the affairs of the other nation and the treaty signed and is now known as "the treaty of Bark River bridge," Bark River being the dividing line between the two territories.

Another significant change brought about by the revolution was the common use of clothing. During the unicorn's reign only they were allowed to wear clothes, the slaves were kept naked as a sign of the unicorn's superiority. After the revolution all the ponies wore clothes to show that they were now equal citizens and a part of society and not slaves. Over time this became the cultural norm and despite slavery being made illegal under the treaty of Bark River bridge, those without clothing in public were seen as ruffians, miscreants, and low lifes.

After the treaty the societies of the pegasi and earth ponies diverged, the pegasi became very expansionist and rapidly explored and declared territory in all directions controlled by them. Despite this expansionism many areas declared part of their territory remained unsettled. Large focus was put on constantly increasing the size of Cloudsdale, while there were towns set up both on the ground and from clouds the main 4 cities given in the treaty and especially Cloudsdale continued to expand. However the expansion of Cloudsdale led to a problem, there wasn't enough water to make the clouds. This problem was solved by several pegasus scientists who managed to create highly compacted clouds, not only were these clouds made up of less water but they could also support large amounts of solid material. Cloudsdale changed rapidly, it was no longer made up purely of clouds but now resembled a normal city being supported by a massive bed of clouds under it. Meanwhile the earth ponies' society was less expansionist with its borders but more so with its cities, towns were founded everywhere as both new and old cities continued to grow. Huge amounts forest was cut down for land and their society became disconnected with nature.

After the creation of the denser clouds and the change of Cloudsdale, the biggest rift in the societies began, one took the path of science, and the other religion. The Pegasus religion became the most important part of their society. This religion believed that there are three pegasus horses who are gods, they believe that they created everything and that when making ponies they choose the pegasi as their favorites because they gave them wings to soar through the sky and be closer to the heavens where their gods reside. The church is a massive organization and is key in government, it has 3 main leaders and branches, this is part of the pegasus obsession with threes due to their belief in 3 gods. The church's primary leaders and branches are the office of the executor who handles dealing with the military, the office of the quorius who deals with the pegasus senate, and the magister who controls the role of the church in the everyday lives of the public. The pegasus senate is made up of 50 pegasi each one is voted one in a massive election week taking place every 10 years. If you are voted into the senate you cannot decline, and during elections everypony is considered running and you can vote for anyone, because of this the senate is often comprised of celebrities or the ultra rich who have the money to make sure the public knows who they are. Each pegasus in the senate holds one vote however the quorius of the church may vote in any matter he wishes and his vote counts for 20 votes.

Earth pony society became very focused on science and technology instead of religion, back in celestian times technology had basically been the equivalent of that in the European middle ages. During the hierarchy of the unicorns the only science was heavily mixed with magic, however the start of the new earth pony nation could be seen as a renaissance. A large change was the availability of gunpowder and all that comes with it, this was so widely spread even the pegasi got their hands on it, despite religious influence, pegasus society was still technologically increasing but more slowly and with a larger focus on military application particularly guns. In the earth pony nation however science proceeded slightly faster but in the same manner as on earth, until the invention of the steam engine. This was a massive change for the earth ponies, cities started having factories pop up everywhere making everything from goods to trains to weapons. Steam was used to power machines much like the magical ones from unicorn times, aside from railroads there were also walkers, massive walking machines using steam engines and clockwork that could be piloted by earth ponies. A steam powered navy was created for use in the ocean to the east, and area which had previously been controlled solely by the pegasi who changed weather patterns to fit clipper ships which could move at high speeds. Science and industry became such a part of earth pony life that their government was based on it. In earth pony government only scientists who have created excellent scientific achievements can be voted upon by the general population to serve on the council of 25 which governs all of the earth pony nation. The first zeppelins were lighter than air not using hydrogen or helium however but vacuum, these airships could fly very fast at great heights with steam powered engines and were far preferable to the hot air balloons of old.

The age of steam was not without its costs however as the factories started to pollute the air. Wind currents made it so the smog drifted into pegasus territory, this smog was deadly to any pegasus who flew through it and some floating towns had to be abandoned. As the smog clouds drifted near Cloudsdale action had to be taken and the pegasi removed normal clouds from the earth pony, by using the additional water they brought in them they made the air pure enough to nullify the smog. The pegasi managed to clean their air but they had deprived the earth pony nations of the water necessary in their water cycle and had broken the treaty by interfering with the earth ponies' weather. The earth ponies' crops started to die from lack of rain and they demanded that the pegasi give back clouds necessary in the water cycle, the pegasi however needed them to keep the air clean enough to combat smog in the pegasus nation. They pegasi said they would only give back the clouds if the factories and steam engines were all shut down, however the earth ponies argued that since their entire military was steam based that would make them easily susceptible to invasion from the pegasi. Both sides walked away but things only got worse for the earth ponies, the crops were all starting to die while in the pegasus territories they were lush and growing. Finally in 163 A.R. (after revolution) when the drought reached unacceptable levels, the first earth pony was machines marched across the Bark River… This story starts one week after the invansion of trottingham just across the bark river the first invasion of the war.

**Hoped you enjoyed the first chapter, this was just introduction but the next chapters will actually introduce characters, please review and I will incorporate your suggestions, I am hoping to make this story long so keep awaiting my posts I should have the next one up very soon.**


	2. The walker armory

**As promised chapter 2 this time with characters, enjoy, review please.**

**Chapter 2: The walker armory**

The air was thick with smoke and the sound of hammers and blowtorches rang through the air, but to Clockver the sounds were as commonplace to him as his own voice. Clockver was an earth pony about the age of 45 with a scraggily overgrown black mane with shoots of grey and a jet black coat which made it impossible to notice all the soot and engine grease on him except for when it fell on his brown mechanic uniform. He had worked in the walker armory most of his life and he felt at home among the gears, grease, and soot. He was wearing a utility vest as well equipped with a blow torch, a utility vest is the commonplace working attire of a mechanic, it straps over a pony's body and has a small steam engine connected to a deposit of coal and water near the back of the armory. In the case of Clockwork his steam engine powered his blowtorch, which he was using to weld an armor plate onto the foot of a walker.

Walkers were the most deadly weapons in the whole earth pony army, they were massive machines loaded up with guns and with by gears powered by a steam engine and controlled by ponies. There were two kinds of walkers, bipedal ones and eight legged ones. Bipedal ones are on two legs and can be 2 to 5 storeys tall they are controlled by one piloting pony and another who controls the guns, in some of the larger ones two ponies have to control the guns. The average medium sized walker has five guns two machine guns on the legs, one heavy machine gun under the frontal cockpit, and instead of where arms would be on a human, two large cannons. They had gears running all along the length of them and armor plating to protect the clockwork inside. Inside the cockpit there are joystick like mechanisms deigned for hoofs so that they can not only walk forward but rotate and look up and down. The eight legged ones are a different story however, these were 10 to 12 storeys tall and were less like walkers and more like naval ships supported by eight legs. Their guns were all on their decks and they had rooms for sleeping, eating, and even a bridge for the officers.

All of these kinds of walkers were present in the manehattan walker armory, the largest walker repair and storage area in the earth pony nation and contained some of the most devastating weaponry in the land. It was a magnificent sight to see, 13 storey's high and on each level a catwalk to allow workers to repair every area of the walkers, some of the bipedal walkers were even placed several storey's higher via crane to save space. There were hundreds of engineers and walker pilots present at any one time, it was a mechanics heaven.

Clockver was working on one of the 3 storey walkers welding in an armor plate for the foot when suddenly he was tipped sideways. He fell down and in the heavy harness it hurt, but he quickly shut off his blowtorch. Lifting up his welding visor he saw a bright red stallion with orange mane wearing a walker pilot's uniform, "you ass," said Clockver "I had my blowtorch active, you nearly burned my face off!"

The red pony looked uninterested, "when will my walker be ready" he asked nonchalantly.

"Soon" replied Clockver, his anger slowly receding, "the armor plate was torn to bits, what the hell happened? The register says this walker was only on patrol."

"Its foot got stuck in some oak tree roots and ripped it up pretty badly" the red pony replied.

"yeah well be more careful" Clockver said, the red pony looked as if he was furious about being told what to do, but didn't respond and simply walked away.

Suddenly a voiced called out from the copper speaking tubes which ran along the factory and curved outward at points to amplify ones voice and carry it throughout the factory like primitive speakers.

"Will the following Ponies please report to the deck of the _Wolf_…" The names of 20 ponies were called out, including Clockver. The _Wolf_ was an eight legged walker of 12 storeys high, not because the hull or the bridge was very high, but because its cannons were. Only two cannons in the earth pony army had official names, _Breaker_ and _Smasher_, both were aboard the _Wolf_. Theses cannons were practically towers when craned skywards and their ammo was as big as 4 full grown ponies, there was hardly a sight more menacing to the enemy.

Clockver had worked at the armory since he was 16 long before the war had started and back when walkers could hardly move for 15 minutes without breaking down. He had been hired on because he was the son of the clockmaker so therefore he knew quite a bit about gears, (hence the name Clockver wordplay of the common pony name clover) he remembered those days fondly, but now the armory was too big and to busy. However in all these years he had never once been called upon the deck of a walker, especially not with 19 other mechanics. They were all ordered to line up on the deck of the _Wolf, _he recognized his friend Iron Hammer, an old white pony with a gray mane and bushy gray moustache

"what do you think were doing here Clockver" whispered Iron Hammer.

"don't Know," replied Clockver, "but since there's 20 of us, it must be important."

Suddenly a pony who Clockver guessed was the first mate of the ship appeared, he was a young pony, he had a sharp well groomed black mane and a dark green coat, he was wearing the standard officers cap with a 1st lieutenant insignia and was wearing a crisp, well pressed uniform.

"You have all been recruited onto the _wolf_ as combat engineers for a special assignment" He said

A gasp passed through all the mechanics, combat engineers, most eight legged walkers only have one or two combat engineers, twenty was unheard of, wherever they were going, there was going to be a lot of fighting.

After minute the lieutenant spoke again, "a week will be spent here preparing, I want armorers to bulk up the armor plating, I want weapons specialists to check that weapons are functioning and loaded as well as install 3 AA guns. Lastly I want the engine and gear specialists to make sure the legs can support the extra weight of you 20, 5 squads of infantry, the 3 new AA guns, 4 medium walkers, and a scouting balloon, anything else will be done after leaving, Understood?"

The mechanics nodded their heads slowly, but they were all shocked, it was a lot of work to be completed in one week, even more shocking was the fact that they were being whisked off into battle in one week.

One pony raised his hand and spoke, "where are we going sir?" he asked the first mate.

"That is none of your concern" he replied "some ponies are willing to turn on their own kind simply because the pegasi paid them off, we cant tell you all of the mission details in case one of you is that pathetic and lowly." As he said this his eyes seemed to be probing them, searching for any sign of treachery.

Halfway through the week Clockver and Iron Hammer were repairing some worn down gears in one of the _Wolf _'s legs, they were suspended in mid air from a harness to work on them when the noticed some new people painting the hull of the _Wolf _in winter camouflage.

"Look at that" said Iron Hammer, "guess we'll be dealing with some snow where we are going, do ya' think the pegasi will have blizzard cannons?"

"No," said Clockver "the pegasi don't have many blizzard cannons, almost all of them were deployed to the front after the invasion."

"Maybe we're going to the frozen north," Iron Hammer said while ripping a stuck gear out of its place.

"Why?" Said Clockver "I know that the pegasus nation claimed it as their territory but nopony lives there."

"You don't think we could be going into… mountains?" Iron Hammer said, he looked genuinely terrified at the idea of it.

"Of course not," said ClockVer worriedly, "I mean, that's suicide there'd be no point, its impossible for us to win on mountains because while we are trudging up the pegasi could just fly over and we'd be completely exposed on the cliffs, and we wouldn't even be able to take walkers up a mountain or bring any AA. The battle would be over in a second, they would never send us into the mountains, our commanders aren't that foolish.

"Come on," Iron Hammer said, "we need to get down to the bottom to begin work on the new feet for the _Wolf."_

**Hope you liked that chapter, next one is on its way and will be done from a pegasus's perspective. I will try to set a regular time, make sure to review, I will take your suggestions and put them into the story if they are good, they may not appear right away but if I like it I may use your idea a few chapters later. **


	3. Maintaining bonds of church and state

**As promised chapter 3, hate to sound like a broken record but make sure to review, I will listen to your Ideas if you post any, the only thing set in stone is that there will be 4 total characters in this story 2 pegasi and 2 earth ponies, you have already met one of the earth ponies, here is one of the pegasi.**

**Chapter 3. Maintaining the bonds of church and state**

The sound of Illiyad's hoofs echoed on the cold marble floor of the grand cathedral, the massive arches and walls made the blue pegasus with a blonde mane feel insignificant, despite his devotion to the church Illiyad hated cathedrals. Kneeling in front of a massive statue of the 3 gods was the executor, despite his 56 years of age he looked quite young, the only thing betraying his age was his grey mane and white fur. His long robes embroidered with designs as intricate as that of the cathedral's stain glass windows bore a stark contrast to Illiyad's simple white clothing, the uniform of a pravos, the lowest ranking member of the church. The executor was deep in prayer, and Illiyad wondered if the executor had really summoned him here, or if it was his mistake. As he turned around to leave the executor spoke in his calm collected manner, as if he was paying no attention to Illiyad.

"Stay pravos Illiyad" he said.

"You wanted to see me executor Herodotus," Illiyad said, the pegasi had longed switched from using names based on ones character, to generic names.

"Indeed I did," said the executor, "I want you to lead a patrol."

"patrol, sir?" said Illiyad very confused, members of the church never went on patrol.

"Yes," said the executor, still calm "I know this is shocking to you, normally it is more fitting of members of the church to command platoons, and lead strike forces, and supervise battles. However this tends to lead some resentment of the church by members of the normal military, in times of struggle, such as this war, we must work together, and the bonds between church and state must be stronger than ever. You are not alone in this assignment, many of your rank have been sent out to lead patrols, the military has to see us as equals, not solely as commanders."

"I understand sir," Said Illiyad, "however I believe I have proven myself to be devoted and a good soldier, and… well… I fell that I am ready for a command position sir."

"Illiyad," sighed the executor, "you are young, I have men who have been with the church twice as long as you being denied command positions, we simply don't have enough command positions available."

"I understand sir when do I begin?" replied Illiyad

"Tomorrow, you will be patrolling the Riker mountains, your squad will be 87 H, I know you will be commanding them but you have to give them more leeway than normal, remember the military has to work with us, not for us."

" I will sir I promise, I'm going to head out there now to prep them."

"excellent, you are dismissed, get your harness and bring it to the barracks."

The harness is the standard military apparatus for all pegasi, it is a harness which fits over the forelegs and has two places for tools at the palm of each hoof. The standard military harness has the two holes contain, a submachine gun on the left hoof which is complete with an iron sight, and a sword on the right hoof. However anything can be put in these two slots provided ones commanding officer approves, an engineer may choose to equip a welder or wrench instead of a sword. This is in many ways more efficient than the earth pony harnesses though harder to aim. The earth pony harness fits over a pony's body and has one machine gun, which is placed next to the pony's face so he can see out the iron sites and a bayonet is affixed at the end of the gun. The earth ponies also have a one hoof gun however, these are like a pistol and attached to a holster at an earth ponies belt. However unlike with human pistols the holster is a part of the gun and all a pony has to do is fit his hoof through the holster and it attaches to his hoof so he can fire when on two legs.

Illiyad went to the cathedral back room, which contained an armory for any church member, he put a harness on and equipped a sword and a partially gilded shield on it, as church members are not allowed to use firearms in battle. Before leaving Illiyad knelt and prayed to the gods, he was very devoted to the church and had been all his life. After praying he trotted to get out of the cathedral eager to leave the condescending cavernous hall, he opened the massive oak doors emblazoned with the winged trident, the symbol of the church, and stepped out into Cloudsdale. Cloudsdale was always busy, at any one time there could be thousands of pegasi flying in one block, there were shops everywhere and the buildings were tall with doors on every floor. There were posters emblazoned everywhere, put up by the rich so the public knew who they were come election time. Chariots ferried some but most pegasi preferred to fly themselves, some walked on the surface streets if the sky was too crowded to fly easily, street vendors sold various things on the street via chariot. Most prominent were the churches, littered ever few blocks, it was required that people enter a church at least once a day for at least five minutes, while this was hard to regulate most citizens followed it anyway.

Illiyad ignored all the distractions of the street and flew among the crowds towards the military barracks on the edge of town. Cloudsdale was surrounded by a wall not of stone, but of guns, massive artillery pieces lined the outskirts of the city every few meters. Cloudsdale itself was completely movable and because of its artillery it was often moved near areas where there were minor skirmishes. Despite the fact that it could float Cloudsdale was still vulnerable to some ground artillery with very long range. A well placed artillery strike on the cloud bed beneath Cloudsdale could cause buildings to fall through.

Illiyad rushed through the crowds of pegasi and quickly reached the barracks which was near several cannon emplacements, although it should be stated that barracks was less of a building but more of an airspace. The Cloudsdale barracks is considered to be and airspace of 10 cubed acres, where all of Cloudsdale's forces train. Everything was supported on the clouds from the targets for target practice to the dummies for sword practice to the stands for lectures on military strategy. This was so that the ponies could be kept flying the entire day to improve their wing strength. There were pegasi everywhere practicing shooting and swordsmanship, there were ponies practicing bombing accuracy by dropping rubber balls all the way down to the surface bellow and seeing where they hit. There were ponies practicing aerial maneuvers for avoiding AA guns and ponies practicing how to take down walkers. There were pegasi with thunder guns, massive anti walker guns supported on highly electrified storm clouds pushed around by teams of 4 pegasi and controlled by one. There was even a blizzard cannon, a colossal water gun which was shot into a cyclone generated by 20 ponies freezing it and propelling it to the ground either as massive hail chunks the size of ponies.

There were only two buildings in the barracks, one was the urban fighting arena which was just a building where pegasi practiced breaking through windows and other shock attacks, and the other was the soldiers quarters. The soldiers quarters was one of biggest buildings in Equestria, it was 40 stories tall and a mile wide and housed 38,700 soldiers. In the pegasus military there were 333 platoons on record before the war started each platoon has 30 squads made up of 10 men. In each platoon there are 26 combat squads for each letter of the alphabet and four special squads such as engineers or pegasi to help establish a base after an invasion. In Cloudsdale there were 129 of the 333 platoons, including the infamous squad 3C the elite military strike force of the pegasi, the number of platoons in the city would continue to grow during the war.

Illiyad walked to the outside of the barracks and looked at the large sign outside detailing the quarters for the military personnel , platoon 87 squad H was on the 31st floor. Illiyad flew up to the door on the 31st floor and entered, inside the hallway it was very crowded with military personnel coming and going everywhere. He was the only church member and his white clothing made him very conspicuous against the olive drab uniforms of the military. He walked almost the whole length of a mile before he came to the section for platoon 87, after navigating through the section he finally came to the quarters for squad 87H.

Inside it was dank with sweat and smoke, and illiad swore he saw some dried blood, the walls were all dark grey and to him it was a very oppressive room, but to the pegasi in it it seemed just fine. There were ten of them, 8 lying in bed and 2 squabbling next to the rack with their harnesses, it looked like they were about to fight. However upon entering the room all eyes were turned upon the blue pony and Illiyad had never felt more unwanted in his life. For a while they just looked at each other, than knowingly they all got up and started putting on their harnesses. One of them who from the markings on his uniform was the sergeant went up to Illiyad and said.

"so where we going… sir."

The others snickered at that, and Illiyad briefly thought of punishing them for insubordination but then he remembered the executor's words.

"To the Riker Mountains," replied pravos.

Suddenly the whole squad burst into laughter, when it subsided one of the squad members asked.

"What the hell are we doing that for, aint no earthies up there, just snow."

"We don't know the plans of the earth ponies, no one has patrolled that area for a long time so there very well may be earth ponies, if there were, those mountains would be a great artillery position, we cant risk that," replied Illiyad.

"Yes sir, when do we leave," replied the seargent, now being more respectful.

"Well the executor said that we could wait until tomorrow however I propose we jump the gun and get started now, being early never hurt," Illiyad said to the dissatisfaction of the squad.

Illiyad noticed that one of squad members was getting on a harness similar to that of the earth ponies with a heavy machine gun attached to it.

"Um excuse me," said Illiyad "but I don't think you will be able to lift that."

The large red pony turned to him calmly and lifting his wings he said, "sir these are the finest wings in the military I can lift this and more."

"Bull shit!" an orange pony called out, "Yeah you can lift all right but you couldn't do a single maneuver if your bucking life depended on it you can't even fly very fast."

"don't listen to him," the red pony said "I'm fast enough to keep pace, he just likes to run his mouth."

The rest of the ponies got their harnesses on, one remarkably taciturn pony took a sniper rifle which attaches to both hooves, but Illiyad wasn't concerned with this like he was with the heavy machine gun. They all left the Cloudsdale barracks and began the journey to the journey east to the Riker Mountains.

**Hope you liked it, make sure to review especially if you have ideas. I'm looking for anything, plot directions, background, names, especially names, if you have any good character names make sure to put them in a review.**


	4. Flight of the Thunder Strike

**Newest chapter, once again make sure to review, this one is about the other earth pony, next one will be about a pegasus. Enjoy, and by the way yes I know the name of the character in this chapter is the same as my username but believe me it is a coincidence I only realized this after I came up with the name, and anyways they are spelled differently.**

**Chapter 4. Flight of the Thunder Strike**

Looking down from the window Cloudy had a great view of Manehattan, he could see the movement of carriages below like a dark river, and the smoke rose up out of the brick factories to tint the setting sun. Beneath him, the _Thunder Strike _was moored to the ground and the crews were prepping it for flight, loading up the great steam engine. Cloudy couldn't enjoy the view however he was too occupied with his terrible predicament, he was becoming a captain.

Cloudy was named as such because he always had his head in the clouds, he always was dreaming up grand schemes and crazy ideas and he was always imagining impossible things but he never focused on the real world. He was a brown stallion with an equally brown mane but despite his drab colors his eyes were bright green and showed intricate depth and brilliant imagination. He had always wanted to be an engineer and was captivated by the steam powered wonders everywhere in earth pony life. However his hopes were dashed when at 18 he had been drafted into the navy, a part of a draft which had been going on since 122 A.R. He trained to be a junior officer in the navy for two years but in a stroke of good fortune a military aptitude test was given out that year and he scored immensely high. After that he was put in the Military Science Academy where his top subjects were engineering and aerodynamics. After that he was transferred to the Military Aeronautical Research Lab where he spent 3 years working on the _Thunder Strike. _The _Thunder Strike _was the largest and most advanced dirigible in the earth pony air force.

It was 800 feet long and had a top speed of 110 miles per hour, it had a balloon of 2 inch thick basalt fiber, a material both strong and light. The basalt fiber balloon was ribbed and divided into 16 separate sections by a frame, inside these sections was the best vacuum made in Equestria. Unlike other airships the vacuum in this was generated by turbines mid flight, this allowed the airship to rise and fall by letting air into sections and then emptying it again. It had a massive steam engine at back connected to the turbines and to 2 propellers which moved the zeppelin forward. All along the underside of the balloon ran the gondola complete with crew cabins and a bridge. Attached near the front of the gondola was a massive cannon and along the sides ran machine guns poking out windows. Cloudy had spent the past 3 years working on it was his pride and joy, and now, at the age of only 25, he was being given command of it.

Cloudy stopped looking out the window and started pacing the room, it was the officers lounge, the smooth red carpet and fancy bar felt hostile, he yearned for the plain white lab where he spent his days testing out vacuum chambers and aerodynamics of basalt fibers. Cloudy had been alone in the room but than an orange pony with a white mane walked through the door.

"Hello Cloudy," the orange pony said nonchalantly.

"Oh um hello sir." Cloudy hastily replied.

"You don't need to call me sir anymore Cloudy," the orange pony said, "were in different branches now you can call me whatever you like."

"Oh right, Test." Replied Cloudy, Test was the chief of the Engineering department and had been Cloudy's superior for the past 3 years, old habits were hard to break.

Suddenly Cloudy had an idea, "Sir, I mean Test, there's been a problem, one of the engine pistons has been smashing into the basalt fiber on the _Thunder Strike _and I think it might be destroying that part of the frame."

Test sighed, "Cloudy, even if the piston was hitting the basalt fiber it couldn't damage it, you and I both know that, I know you don't want to leave but lying about problems isn't going to change what happens. That ship is different, it's like no other airship made before and you know its workings better than anyone else, and you have actually completed junior officer training. There is a war on, and we don't have time to train a captain to work with that airship."

At first Cloudy looked stunned that Test saw through his lies so easily but then he got angry. He reared his front hooves up smashed them down on the floor and yelled, "but I'm a scientist not a bucking soldier! I can't do this, I belong in the lab that's where I want to be, that's where I need to be!"

At this Test pulled up a seat the bar and poured himself a drink with his hooves, Cloudy took a seat next to him.

"Do you know the difference between an earth pony and a pegasus," Test said.

"One has wings and one doesn't," remarked Cloudy, smirking.

"Beside that one," snapped Test. "When confronted with a problem a pegasus takes the easy way out, he flies around it, or ignores it, anything to have him avoid doing work. But an earth pony works hard, he uses his wits and his hooves to solve his problems. A true earth pony if he has the means will accomplish his goal no matter how hard he has to work. That's how we invented the steam engine, that's how we are going to win this war, and that is how you are going to captain this airship, you have the means, now work hard and achieve your ends."

"Yes sir," replied Cloudy getting up and walking to the door.

"Its Test, he called back as Cloudy Left.

The mooring area bore a stark contrast to the lounge, there were ponies everywhere, they were busy loading up the engines with coal or doing preflight checks on the propellers and vacuum turbines. The gondola doors were open and Cloudy stepped through, inside it was full of soldiers running back and forth, they all knew he was the captain but didn't treat him like it, to them he was still a scientist. Instead of heading to his room, Cloudy went to the bridge, to meet the staff he would be working with. The bridge itself was quite a sight, the front of it had massive glass dome, and through the center of the dome was the handle of the great cannon. The handle was turned by two ponies and angle measurers were attached from it to the floor so a to make it easy to aim. The cannon itself obstructed little from the view out the window, great efforts had been made to make it easy to aim. Along the sides of the bridge were all the control panels for the various brass controls for the ship, Cloudy was familiar with all this however, he had designed it, he was trying to make sense of the crew not the ship. An aged brown pony with a white mane and beard came up to him and greeted him.

"Hello captain, welcome aboard, I will be your first mate, my name is commander Cannon sir, what are your orders." Though he said this calmly Cloudy could still detect malice in his voice.

"Orders umm…" Cloudy stuttered, "well I guess my orders are, lets get going and take off"

This time Cannon made no attempt to disguise the irritation in his voice, "sir we haven't finished loading up coal, or finished our preflight checks yet, some of the crew aren't even on board."

At this some of the crew sniggered, some were looking at cloudy as if he was a piece of trash, others seemed scared that this man was their captain. How could he be so stupid, thought Cloudy, Cannon was setting him up for that. People don't ask orders when the course of action is clear, his own first mate was setting him up to fail!

"Right, um I guess your right lets stay here," Cloudy said uncertainly.

Fortunately before Cannon could respond a Light green pony sitting at a control seat said.

"Sir we have a problem, the ground crews say that they cant get the pistons to run."

Finally something Cloudy could do.

"Did they take off the safety lock?" Cloudy asked.

"Yes sir" replied the pony

"Did they set the distribution ratio?"

"Sir?" replied the pony looking very confused.

Cloudy face hoofed, he had forgotten none of them had worked on a zeppelin with vacuum turbines. Cloudy went over to the control panel and showed the pony.

"The power in this ship is distributed between the turbines and the propellers, this can be changed at any time when the engine is running but before starting up the engine you set the ratio of how much power goes where by turning that knob."

"Right sir, what ratio should I set it at?" the green pony asked.

"We don't need to rush in gaining altitude but we want to get going towards the front quickly, set the ratio at 70% to 30% in favor of the propellers," replied Cloudy.

He looked around hoping for some approval by the crew but saw none, now they simply saw him as a snooty scientist, he knew the ship, but he wasn't a fighter, he wasn't like them. The crew continued to look at him with malice, so he gave up and handed the bridge over to Cannon. He went to his new cabin, it was very nice, red carpeting and a large bed next to a window, laid out on his bed was his captains uniform. It was white and well pressed, and had a hat with a pin marking him as captain, he wanted to destroy it and all it resembled. But instead he simply threw it aside and flopped down on his bed and realized how little control he had ever had over his life. Ever since he was 18 the military had been passing him around from place to place, he hadn't seen his family or a mare for 2 years. He reluctantly accepted this and drifted off to sleep listening as the engines started humming and the airship took off.

**Hope you liked the new chapter, once again the naming is a coincidence. Make sure to review even if you don't have ideas because I like to gauge how many people are reading and what they think.**


	5. A discreet landing

**Sorry for the long wait, new chapter, please review and share this story. I hope you enjoy this.**

**Chapter 5. Discreet Landing**

The air was dark and heavy, there were fires in the distance and everything was closing in on Sartos. The air felt so thick it was almost as if he was wading through water, the fires in the distance burned in all directions and in the sky the stars were flickering and going out. The whole world was closing in on him trapping him in the thick dark air, everything was ending. Metallic creatures with circular rows of teeth all along their bodies flew from dead trees and tore at him making him bleed deeply. He tried to fly but he couldn't and the creatures enveloped him tearing at him as the universe closed in around him and he was enveloped by blackness. He heard but one thing a voice booming from the sky where there once were stars, SARTOS! SARTOS!

Suddenly Sartos's eyes snapped open and he leapt from his bed onto the intruder at the foot of his bed. He pinned him down on the ground and put one hoof at his throat ready to push down at any moment. He felt his pulse beneath his hoof, he felt the intruder's life running through him and he felt the power of being able to end it at any moment.

That was when Sartos truly awoke, it was dark in the room, so dark he could barely see. He was lying on a hardwood floor and heard the gentle pounding of waves against a bow, told him he was at sea. Underneath him was a Yellow Pony with a brown mane looking at him with wild terrified eyes. His throat was on his hoof and the pegasus was gasping for breath and struggling to move his wings. Sartos heaved a heavy sigh and fell back on the hard wood floor with a pound as all his memories came back to him.

Sartos had been plagued with night terrors since an early age, he always woke up flailing and kicking as a child and when he went into training it had gotten worse. Now whenever he woke up he would attack anything, or anyone, in the room before coming to his senses. He had been trained very heavily as a member of the Pegasus Intelligence and Elimination Taskforce. The PIET had trained him to be a spy and an assassin for 7 years and before the war he ran intelligence gathering in fringe towns along the bark river. He had been in Cloudsdale when war broke out and now he was being sent across the sea on an assassination mission. He had never killed anyone he did not want to start but those were his orders and he would follow them. Pegasus spying and assassination was not easy but it was do able, which gave them another advantage over the earth ponies. While it is sacrilegious to remove a pegasus's wings because if gone they are no longer beloved of the gods. PIET manages this by binding a pegasus's wings to his back and than putting on a special cloth over his wings which is made to look like they are not there. This cloth makes the entire back look larger instead of having a bump where the wings are and is expertly painted to look like the pegasus's coat. This is glued onto their backs and made to be irremovable except using a special apparatus, it made the wings impossible to detect. Sartos had been bound for the past 7 years. Pegasi in PIET were only allowed to fly in a massive emergency where there was no chance of escape otherwise.

The yellow pegasus gasped in massive breaths of air and they both lay for a minute until the yellow pegasus spoke.

"What the buck was that!" he exclaimed both angered and confused by Sartos's attack.

"I'm sorry" Sartos replied, "you shouldn't wake me up, I always attack something when I wake up."

"I wish someone had told me before I was told to wake you up" the yellow pegasus groaned.

"Sorry, I cant control my night terrors" said Sartos getting up and turning on the gas light in the room. It was a dank wooden room, very plain with only a bed, a table, and one porthole window. Outside the window the moon was high and cast a glow upon the ocean which reflected its brilliance back up unto the sky. The dark coast was visible from the water and beyond it the Riker Mountains could be seen looming up into the dark clouds.

"So why did you wake me up" Sartos asked walking back from the gaslight to the yellow pegasus.

"The captain wanted me to tell you we will be landing soon."

"Landing," Sartos asked confused, "it's the dead of night, there's nothing out there but empty coastline, and Port Dawn isn't for miles." Port Dawn was the primary earth pony port situated further south along the crescent shaped Luna Coast which ran along the eastern sea.

"I'm afraid earth pony patrols have increased around that area so we have had to change plans. You are not boarding the train from Port Dawn, you will be dropped off at the Luna Coast where you will make your way to the train station any way you can, you will be given enough provisions and survival equipment for this journey."

Sartos was confused and outraged by this, "by the gods I'm an assassin not a survivalist."

"We know" replied the yellow pegasus, "but I am, which is why the captain has sent me with you. I will be guiding you from the shore to the train station and I'm to be you're assistant from thereon out. I'm Carth by the way, and, well I already know your name. Come one, lets go up topside, well be landing soon."

Sartos grabbed everything he planned on taking, some extra trousers and shirts, some earth pony money, and a pistol. They then plodded up the stairs and opened the latch at the top. The moon shone brightly from the sky and reflected on the deck of the ship, which was coated in iron so thick the earth pony cannons could not penetrate it. The wind howled blowing forcefully on the rough canvas sail allowing the ship to move at great speeds despite the iron armor. The pegasi made sure that the wind blowed very hard. The two ponies made their way to the edge of the ship, the shore was close enough to fly to however both their wings were bound and they needed to land on the shore.

The winds slowed and the ship began to move more slowly, gliding through the water. The bulkhead of the ship crashed into the sandy beach with a thud but Carth held his ground, Sartos however did not and was thrown off the side of the ship into the sand. Fortunately for Sartos the ship was not very large and as he was thrown he only fell a few feet and not far enough to injure him. His green coat and black mane were completely covered in sand and his clothes were full of it. As he slowly got up he heard Carth laughing as he walked down the gangplank to the shore. Carth threw a saddle bag at Sartos's hooves and said chuckling.

"Here is your gear for the journey try not to get as much sand in it as you have on you right now."

Sartos got up and shook his head to get the sand off, he opened up the bag and and said.

"Is this it? There doesn't appear to be much food in that bag."

"Its just dried fruit, but it will last us long enough to get where we need to go," replied Carth.

As they began to walk away from the shoreline Sartos wondered how the ship would sail again, it had run aground after all. Suddenly a deafening sound rang out in all directions, it was the wind. The massive force of it was enough to push the boat off of the beach and back into the water. As if he was reading Sartos's mind Carth said.

"The naval ponies are some of the best weather controllers, their command of weather is unparalleled."

The two ponies walked away from the beach in silence and into the tree line.

**There you have it, all four characters, next chapter will be going back to Clockver. Make sure to review and share this story it might be a while till the next chapter I'm kind of busy but I could use some suggestions for my writing as well so put it in a review.**


	6. Onboard the Wolf

**Sorry for the long wait and short chapter, I've been busy. I know this story's chapters are a little bit shorter than most so I'm trying to add more to them, not in description but in events, there may be a little less description from now on. This chapter will include a lot of geographic mentions and unfortunately I cant post a map, basically the Luna Coast is to the west, Manehattan is to the southeast, Ponyville is in between and the Riker Mountains are in the center of the Luna Coast.**

**6. Onboard the Wolf**

In the distance the earth pony fleet could be seen moving along the coast, the towers of smoke betrayed their position to Clockver on the deck of the _Wolf. _ They were nearby the Luna Coast, the sandy beaches could be seen and with the aid of binoculars Port Dawn could also be observed. They had been moving in a B line toward the coast since they left Manehattan. They had paused their journey only for a quick stop in Ponyville and then they had set off once more. Now however they were moving north and there was much speculation as to where they were going. The crew of the _Wolf_ had even created a betting pool for the destination of the walker and Clockver had lost quite a lot of money betting on Port Dawn.

Despite the distractions of work and gambling on board the _Wolf_ Clockver found himself missing his family. He stayed up late nights thinking of them, something which took quite a toll on the work he was doing improving the engines. Clockver's family was back in Manehattan, although he was a member of the military he might as well have been a commercial engineer based on how he was treated. He was allowed to leave the walker armory and return to his home after his shifts. He never thought of himself as a military man, just an engineer who happened to work for the military. His family had owned a small apartment back in Manehattan, it was a tall Victorian styled building just like the rest of the city. His apartment had been small but it had been enough for his wife and little filly. They lived as the lower class of Manehattaners did, not in the large cushy mansions or fine restaurants but the smoke filled streets and factories. They were the earth pony working class, they lived their lives among gears, soot, and steam. Now Clockver was being randomly dragged off to fight a war. He often thought of when he had come home from work after it had been announced he was to serve aboard the _Wolf_. His wife had cried at first, Clockver remembered the tears running down her purple face, and how he brushed her pink mane and tried to comfort her even though he practically cried himself. He remembered his daughter so confused asking him where he was going with her large inquisitive eyes.

Clockver remembered all this and sighed, he walked away from the railing and from the view of the sea and went back to his room. He fell down on his hard bed with gray sheets, in the room with gray walls and a gray table. He wanted to force all the grayness and dull drab lifelessness away and be back with his family and be happy instead of bland and gray.

No sooner had he entered the room than a gray stallion with a somehow grayer mane walked in. Instantly Clockver wanted to punch him just for being gray but he knew the earth pony could not change his color, so he resisted.

"You're wanted down in the boiler room," the gray stallion said lazily.

"Buck," mumbled Clockver, "what for?"

"How the hell should I know just get your flank down there," the earth pony said.

Clockver was becoming so irritated with this pony that he decided he would be rid of him and his maddening grayness faster if he just listened and went down the boiler room. So putting thoughts of his family aside he left his room and went down to the boiler room.

The boiler room was at the back of the _Wolf_ and in the center of the hull so Clockver had to take a walk across the gray deck down many flights of gray stairs further irritating him. Clockver had always been calm and collected but he swore that if he saw one more gray thing he was going punch a hole in the wall. Fortunately for him the boiler room was so covered in soot that it was mostly black. In fact upon entering his cleaned brown mechanic uniform instantly became covered in soot blending in perfectly with his black coat making him seem naked. Clockver was used to soot so he was unfazed and simply plodded along to find the pony who had requested his presence. To Clockver's delight this pony was not gray but in fact red tinged with black from all the soot. His mane was a mix of red as well as yellow and orange and once again black from the soot.

"Are you the head, boiler room person, whatever, you know what I mean," Clockver asked unsurely.

The red pony spun around and answered, "Yes I'm the head shovler, that's not the official title but I lead this lot." He said pointing with his hoof to all the other ponies shoveling coal, "and I shovel coal, so I'm the head shovler, but call me Firebrand." He smiled widely and spoke in a cockney British accent.

"I called ya down ere' because, well you're a mechanic and we've been a'vin a little piston trouble."

"What sort of trouble?" Clockver asked.

Firebrand led him over to a door marked "do not enter" and opened the door. Clockver was immediately hit by a blast of heat coming from massive amounts of steam in the room. Inside there were pistons everywhere moving up and down in rhythmically, to Clockver it was like fine music. However several pistons were "out of tune" One appeared to be jammed somehow and this had caught on other pistons making that whole section immobile.

"If we don't get that up and running one of the legs is going to stop working," Clockver said worriedly

"Well I aint no mechanic, get in der' an' fix it," Firebrand said lazily.

"Are you kidding," Clockver said, "that place is so full of pistons they could crush me if I'm not careful, besides it's twice as hot in there as any sauna in Equestria, you need to shut down the engine."

Firebrand went over to one of the workers shoveling coal and told him to go tell the captain Clockver's problem. After several minutes the pony came back and relayed what the captain had said.

"He said he can't stop the engine it would take too long to start up and we have to make haste, no matter what we have to keep moving."

"Are you bucking kidding me!" Clockver exclaimed, did you tell him that the leg would stop working soon?"

"Yesiree, he says you just have to do the best you can," the messenger responded.

"Don't be such a gelding," Firebrand said punching Clockver on the arm a little too hard for his taste.

"I'm not being a gelding," Clockver said annoyed, "I could seriously get hurt from one of those pistons, not to mention the heat."

"Well if you aint a gelding and you really do got a pair, than you're go in there and fix that there piston," Firebrand said slapping Clockver on the back.

Clockver grumbled something undistinguishable and slowly padded over to the "do not enter" door and opened it. The blast of heat came out again and Clockver looked into the room, and stepped inside. Inside the hot steam was unbearable, within seconds his coat was drenched washing all the soot off and he was panting. He carefully avoided the pistons on the sidewalls, which were smashing up and down rhythmically, however he soon came to a group of pistons right in front of him. He carefully ducked under one and than quickly hopped over the one behind it while it was on it's down stroke. Several blasts of steam came out of piping on the wall, hitting him in the face instantly drenching his mane and causing him to nearly faint from the heat. His adrenaline finally kicked in and he ran forward around and under several more pistons in his way. One piston ran sideways along the wall and as Clockver ran through it the piston caught his tail ripping part of it off as it smashed against the wall. Clockver screamed and Firebrand called from outside but Clockver did not hear him over the pounding of pistons and hiss of steam. Finally he reached the piston which was jammed. The water in his eyes made it hard to see and he was so tired he could barely lift the oil out of his jacket. But he did though and slathered tons of oil on the rusted piston and slowly it began it rise and fall. The entire chain of pistons started to move as well joining the symphony of the engine. Clockver knew he could not rest because the heat would continue to make him weak so he went back the way he came, timing each of his movements through the pistons exactly as he had on the way there. He stumbled out of the engine room soaking wet and panting from heat exhaustion. Firebrand closed he door behind him and lifted him to his hooves.

Firebrand chuckled and said, "Well I gotta give it to ya, you aint no gelding"

"Hehe, he…" Clockver chuckled unsurely before collapsing to the floor.

He rested there for 2 hours before Firebrand woke him up.

Clockver left the boiler room and climbed up the gray stairs onto the gray deck. The moon was high and snow was beginning to fall, Clockver also noticed that the deck was at a slight angle. They were going up the mountains, he could see now, the _Wolf _was slowly winding up the side of the Riker Mountains. In order for the _Wolf _to get up the mountain it would have to go from side to side on the mountain because it couldn't travel at a very steep angle. But to do this it would have to go through some very rocky areas, suddenly Clockver remembered the new feet he had worked so hard to install. They were made to be tough and to grip, Clockver cursed himself for being too stupid to notice it. He made up for his earlier stupidity by going to the betting pool and quickly betting all the money he had on the Riker Mountains, a bet no one had placed so far, before everyone else woke up. Clockver walked back to his gray room and collapsed on his gray bed and pondered his gray world as the snow fell on the deck of the _Wolf_.

**Hope you liked the chapter the next one will include a battle, from there I will include a lot more battles. I know I was a bit less descriptive than usual and a bit short and I am sorry, I've been busy. On the bright side if you comment on my story I will turn your profile name into a side character, or you can comment with a specific description of a character (looks, personality, name) and I will include it, this will start as soon as this chapter is published so since I'm from the past that will be your right now, SO GET COMMENTING!**


	7. The snow

**Hi newest chapter as promised, hopefully there wont be so many spelling errors in this one. Anyway I have also made those who have reviewed into characters, there was only really room for 2 in this chapter but I have 3 reviewers so If I don't include you right now I will soon. Keep the reviews coming and all, always great to know your opinions and ideas. On a side note I did not include the reasons for this story's rating in my first chapter so while I have made the edit, for those of you who have already got to this point I will repeat. This is rated T for violence, swearing, and brief suggestive themes later in the story. Note that I do not condone war, it is terrible, yet a good frame for a plot.**

**7. The Snow**

Illiyad stood at the end of the ridge looking down into the river valley below as the snow fell around his hooves. Next to him was a white pegasus with a light blue mane streaked with white, he was peering through his sniper scope in order to make due for a lack of binoculars.

They had been traveling for only three days and already they were in the center of the Riker Mountains. Cloudsdale had been close when they had left and the moving city was getting even closer. It was vaguely visible in the distance, a colossal cloud with gray piled on top of it.

They were camped out on a ridge overlooking the bark river which ran through the center of the mountains, out to the Luna Coast, and into the Viceroy sea. It cut a deep valley in which some plants could found growing, but up on the ridge it was cold and icy. Behind him the soldiers had made a fire and were lazily eating lunch in the snow.

Illiyad scrunched his shoulders to hug his winter coat closer to his body and asked the pony next to him.

"See anything Eagle?"

Eagle took his time to respond and tranquilly responded, "smoke between the two peaks to your left getting closer.

Eagle held his sniper rifle close to Illiyad's face so he could see the smoke plume. At first he did not see it but after a few minutes he noticed the tiniest of grey puffs. Eagle had really sharp eyes, and it was quite fitting that he was named as such, Eagle being one of few pegasus names that are based on something, all of such names had to do with flight.

"Rouse the men," Illiyad said and Eagle went over to inform each one of them they needed to move.

As they put on their harnesses, save Eagle who had one on already, a lanky young pony came up to him. He was crimson colored with a black mane streaked with yellow to look like lightning bolts. His harness was equipped with a spreader instead of a sub machinegun, a spreader is basically shotgun except it has a rotating barrel similar to revolver so it doesn't require pumping and can be used by hoofed creatures.

He spoke in a British accent with the brash confident voice of youth ,"Sir, what the buck do you think is over there that could be making smoke."

"What's your name," Illiyad asked.  
>"Baennor," he replied.<p>

"Well Baennor it's probably a fire, some lost earth ponies desperately trying to stay alive, cant think of anything else in these mountains."

"And if its not?"

"It doesn't matter," Illiyad said confidently, "they will die by our hand either way."

They all took flight and quickly made it over the valley to the two peaks where the smoke was coming from. They landed at a rock outcropping near the top, from here the smoke could be seen rising vast amounts. Eagle flew away from the rock outcropping going temporarily out of view, after a few minutes he flew back to the rock outcropping with news.

He was panting as he spoke, "I flew back as fast as I could, I saw it! A walker, eight legs, decks full of guns, winding its way through the mountains."

"A walker, that's crazy," one pony said, "I mean these are the mountains, not only is it pointless to send a walker here, its impossible, they can't negate the rocky mountain passes."

"Its true!" Eagle replied, we have to leave and get word back to Cloudsdale.

"No" Illiyad said, "we take that thing down."

"Sir, please I'm serious this was an eight legger, it had 2 massive cannons, and I mean massive," Eagle responded.

"Good, than they will be too big to hit our small group,"

Illiyad drew a plan in the snow, "the walker is going to be heading up the mountain which gives us an advantage. Any AA they have will be turned skyward but the walker will be at slightly steep angle. If we just fly at it head on we should be able to move quickly almost as if we were dive bombing without coming from above, making us all but immune to AA the right away. When we do this shoot everyone on the deck, we will have surprise on our side so they wont shoot at us at first but we need to make this quick. If we clear the deck of ponies we should be able to get inside, in there we will also have the fighting advantage, earth ponies cant fight well at close range. Inside we will proceed to the cargo area, from there we can find enough explosives to quickly fly back outside and destroy one of the legs. If we can't make it back outside we will detonate all the explosives in the cargo bay and try do anything we can to escape, if possible."

The ponies went along with this plan, reluctantly, but in the end they agreed, had it been up to them they would not have gone. However they at least knew that their commander had some plausible though risky plan, and begrudgingly followed it.

They flew to a higher area in sight of the walker where they hovered in the air waiting to attack.

"Eagle," Illiyad said, "Stay hovering here, don't fire until we start firing, when we get inside take out everyone you can on the deck, if we don't come out, go back to Cloudsdale and report what happened."

Eagle got his rifle ready and the other 10 pegasi readied their weapons as Illiyad reviewed the plan with them. He was no commander, he knew no rousing speeches all he did was say a short prayer before they left.

They shot down the mountain side moving as fast as they could and opened fire on the deck of the walker. Within an instant several earth ponies lay dead and the entire area was in confusion. The AA guns were shooting wildly into the air at nothing exploding in bursts only adding to the confusion, everything was going perfectly for the pegasi. The large machine gun on the back of one of the pegasi erupted into fire scattering the crew of the walker in all directions as bullets crashed onto the deck of the walker. Baennor was the fastest and quickly arrived at the deck shooting one pony in the chest with his spreader and cutting another with his sword. One earth pony which had a gun harness on aimed at Illiyad and fired, Illiyad dodged but he almost hit him. Finally a bullet cracked into his skull making the earth pony slump on the deck in a pool of red, Illiyad mentally thanked Eagle. At this point they had all stopped their fast descent and they were now flying around the deck killing the remaining crew. One earth pony with a gun harness stepped out from a corner and shot one of the pegasi, the pegsus's wings stopped flapping and his momentum carried him off the deck of the ship. Another pegasus quickly shot the earth pony which had made the kill. Eagle had killed all of the AA gunners and the deck was now clear except for one earth pony. Illiyad flew into him slamming him with his shield and knocking him down, he held his sword out to his neck and asked simply.

"Cargo bay, directions"

The earth pony responded nervously, "O-open th-the middle door on the d-deck, go down the s-stairs, large door at level 3."

Illiyad cut his throat and gathered his men, the door was unlocked, Illiyad unlatched it, swung it open and the first to step inside was the pegasus with the LMG, however it was immediately apparent that nopony was there. They descended the first flight of stairs with little caution, however at the second flight of stairs an earth pony popped out behind a corner and used a bayonet to shank the pegasus with the LMG. Several earth ponies burst forward shooting, but Illiyad was in his element, church members were trained for close combat and he certainly showed it. He immediately started ducking spinning and jumping around his enemies bashing them with his shield and cutting them down with his blade. Baennor also showed great skill unloading his spreader unto the many earth ponies clustered in the hallway. The pegasi shot and slashed their way down the stairwell encountering more earth ponies at every turn.

It is worth pointing out that in confined spaces the pegasi have a massive advantage. The earth ponies have to be constantly on 4 legs making it so they have trouble maneuvering quickly in tight spaces to aim their gun. The pegasi however have wings which allow them to fly and allow them to easily support themselves on two legs with help from their wings. This allows them to use weapons on the end of their hoof which makes them easier to aim in tight spaces. Because of this the pegasi quickly made their way down the stairwell and though the earth ponies had set up firing lines around corners the pegasi could simply turn their hoof around the corner and fire from there. If they did not do this Illiyad took point with his shield and his comrades behind him fired.

By the time they reached the third floor they had lost only two more ponies, they now had 6. The cargo bay door was already open and to their great dismay was a huge area. Not only that but the cargo bay was full of not just soldiers, but 4 bipedal walkers. All the pegasi took what little advantage they could and flew up to the high ceiling where grabbed what little cover they could in the rafters. Two pegasi practiced walker takedown methods, each went for one knee of the walker carefully avoiding the machine gun ripping out the clockwork. However as soon as they got there soldiers shot them while they had no cover. One walker shot it's cannon at the rafters destroying part of the ceiling and killing a pegasus. Illiyad spotted some explosives and ordered his two remaining ponies to grab them with him. As soon as they left cover however one was killed by machine gun fire from the foot soldiers. Leaving the explosives Baennor and him made a break for the door but as soon as they reached it a cannon shell exploded into the iron doorway collapsing it onto Baennor.

Fortunately for Illiyad he was sealed off from the cargo bay, he flew up the stairs and galloped onto the deck. But there were other ponies there now and they all turned their guns toward him. He saw Eagle flying in the distance and he quickly motioned for him to go with is hoof. Illiyad ran to the edge of the deck and leapt off spreading his wings preparing to take flight but he heard shots behind him and a searing pain suddenly struck his wing. He couldn't move, the pain was coursing through him raging like a wildfire, and than he fell down into the snow and everything went black.

All that existed was cold, that was everything he was, and had been, and would be, the cold flowed through him and embodied him, all that existed was cold. The cold enveloped him in whiteness and held him down and imprisoned him, and yet cold was all that existed and ever would exist. But then there was heat, and heat burned and raged and flowed, it ran through his body like a tide that would never draw back. It burned every single one of his nerves and the pain ran through him and every single fiber of his being was burning in pain. There was cold and there was heat and they made pain, and pain was all that existed.

Then his eyes snapped open, and cold and heat and pain met fear, and he flailed his legs wildly in the snow, but all he could see was white. Fear put aside pain and heat and cold and forced him to flail his legs. He dislodged snow and it caved in and he dislodged it again and again until sunlight emerged. And then fear died and cold and heat and pain came back but there was also hope now.

He shook his entire body and the snow slowly fell to the sides and Illiyad's entire body was bathed in the warmth of sunlight. He was cold all over and could barely move, his right wing was in excruciating amounts of pain and there was a large hole through it. There was dried blood surrounding the wound but the snow had stopped it from continuing to bleed.

Illiyad got on his hooves and looked around, he had been lying in a snow bank below where the walker had been, for how long he couldn't tell. He was quite disoriented and had no idea where to go, he decided to follow the bark river as there was vegetation down there and he needed a food source. Before leaving the snow bank he looked at where Eagle had been flying, but he was not there, Illiyad smiled to himself, at least he had done something right in that battle.

He trudged down through the snow, several times he fell over and sunk into the snow up to his knees. He walked for hours straight down the slope over snow and rocks and ice before finally falling to his knees at the bark river and drinking the cool sweet water.

The bark river valley was a small paradise among the mountains, it was low enough that there was no snow falling and lush vegetation grew on the banks of the river. Wild animals such as deer and rabbits grazed on bushes and grass while salmon jumped in the river. Once dragons would have lived in these mountains as well, Illiyad thought, but the dragons were gone from Equestria with all the other monsters. The unicorns had hunted them all down during their reign, all the dragons and manticores and hydras were killed by their magic machines. Whether or not these creatures still existed in some other part of the world, Illiyad could not say.

After a quick lunch of berries from a bush he found nearby the river, which fortunately turned out not to be poisonous, Illiyad relinquished his coat in the stream and started to walk downriver. He figured that if he could get to the Luna coast from there he could begin to walk to Port Falcon the pegasus port on the northern area of the Luna Coast.

He walked for days and days along the river stopping only to eat the non-poisonous berries he had found and to sleep for only 4 hours a day. Each day he would rise with the sun and walk until his hoofs bled at night. He started to follow the river not out of conscious thought but of destiny. He no longer followed it calculating it as his best chance of survival, he did it because it was his nature to do so, it was his life. Finally after 4 days of walking he felt his hoof sink into sand and returned once more into true consciousness.

He was standing on a beach and in front of him was the Viceroy Sea. Out in the sea was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. A mass of white sails gliding across the ocean, Light appeared to be shining beneath them because of reflections off the metal decks. But to Illiyad they were white angels held aloft by pure light. He galloped to the edge of the beach and stood on two hooves waving them about. He soon fell down onto four hooves unable to stay balanced on two for long without support of his wings, if he had tried to use his one good wing it would have debalanced him further.

Finally a ship turned and moved even faster toward his position. They probably thought he was an earth pony because he had not flown to them, but that was of no matter to Illiyad, they would find out he was a pegasus soon enough. Finally Illiyad allowed his legs to wobble shake from fatigue and fainted onto the beach.

**Hope you liked it, I know it might not have been the best of the chapters so far, but I hope its still satisfactory, it is the longest chapter however. I know it wasn't very descriptive but when I read I like to picture the events as I think they would look so hopefully you do too. Next chapter will be really good, I already have my ideas for it. Once again sorry If you reviewed but I didn't include you as a side character this chapter, but if I didn't I will next. For those of you I did put in the story I'm sorry if the character was not like your personality or what you might imagine yourself looking as an MLP character or whatever, I just based them off your name. Once again I do not condone war, make sure to review with or without suggestions, keep reading.**


	8. The front lines

**As promised chapter 8, once again if you reviewed last time but aren't in this one you will be in the next. Personally this is my favorite chapter I have written so far, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, make sure to review.**

**8. The front lines**

"Town ahead sir, pegasus fortifications are primarily anti walker guns, some pegasi coming our way, cannon almost in range."

The earth pony called out from the large dome shaped window he was looking out of with a spyglass. Cloudy was more nervous than he had ever been, but since the _Thunder Strike_ had left Manehattan he had been reading nonstop about tactics and had been getting instructions on cannon aiming from his crew. He put aside his nervousness so that his crew wouldn't see him as weak and walked over to the large dome window to see the enemy advancing. It was a mix of ground and air forces, the pegasi did that to throw them off, if they all flew than the earth ponies would simply only take AA and always win.

The _Thunder Strike_ was flying ever closer to pegasus town which was now at the edge of the front lines. The Earth ponies had been driving a wedge through the center of the Bark River but now they were spreading out in each direction to capture more land along the river, soon they would reach Canterlot. The _Thunder Strike _had proceeded northeast from the center of the bark river, moving into the wedge of captured territory, and now expanding outwards with the rest of the army.

"Ground forces are within firing range now sir," the pony with the telescope called out. Cloudy sighed and shouted his first orders.

"23 degrees down, 6 degrees right, FIRE!"

The brass cannon glinted in the sunlight as it recoiled back from the shot, on the ground several pegasi disappeared in an explosion.

"2 degrees down, 4 degrees left, FIRE!"

More pegasi on the ground exploded, now the flying forces were getting closer, several were starting to throw bombs on the earth pony ground forces below.

There were many machine guns running along the gondola, which ran all the way down the length of the ship. The machine guns looked and were operated much like human machine guns but with handles and a trigger that was hoof accessible. On the bridge there were two on each side, they roared to life cutting down pegasi flying to the sides of the ship. These pegasi all attempted to shoot the dirigible, but the basalt fiber could easily hold off the bullets. One pegasus foolishly started shooting the dome of glass at the front of the bridge. As soon as he realized the glass was bulletproof however, he was already on a collision course and he crashed into the glass bouncing off and falling to the ground unconscious, at this altitude that meant death.

"6 degrees up, 18 degrees right, FIRE!"

This time the cannon shell hit the defensive AW (anti walker) guns, tearing through the metal and rendering them scrap.

Suddenly a crewman called out "Captain 50 pegasi ahead, they've got drillers!" Drillers were an airship's worst nightmare, they were heavy diamond tipped drills attached to harnesses, the pegasi would land on the ship and drill through the balloon letting air fill the vacuum.

"Um…" Cloudy felt his command slip him, he had been so confident just a few seconds ago.

"33 degrees upwards, 16 degrees left, set shell to airburst, FIRE!"

The shell launched from the cannon and exploded in mid air hitting 21 pegasi. They changed formation and split to the left and right.

"Machine guns concentrate fire on drillers when they get to your side," Cloudy barked. The machine guns could only fire to the sides of the ship not the front, they had a very limited angle. "Maintain height, right 50 degrees, FIRE!" The cannon swung a large right and managed to explode right in the center of the pegasi who went to the right killing all of them in a lucky shot.

The machine guns started to fire on the drillers downing most of them in a storm of bullets blood and feathers. However 4 of them managed to alight on the left side of the ship and begin boring a hole in the balloon.

"Captain," a machine gunner called, "drillers have landed on the left side of the balloon, they're too high up to hit with the machine gun."

As if in answer to this a bullet suddenly ripped through the top of the machine gunner's scalp and came out through his jaw.

The bullet had come from a pegasus hanging of the side of the balloon above the machine gunner, he had shot at him while boring into the basalt fibers.

Cloudy stuck his hoof into his holster getting his pistol and galloped over to one of the windows not occupied by a machine gun and opened it. He leaned out of it and shot the pegasus which had killed the machine gunner. The bullet hit it's mark and the pegasus fell of the side of the balloon. Cloudy leaned out further trying to see the others but just as he did the ship lurched to one side.

The _Thunder Strike _was divided into sixteen vacuum sections so that one driller couldn't take the entire thing down right away. However having one section suddenly be opened and filled with air on one side threw the ship of balance. In this case two drillers had bored through two sections on the left side at the same time and the ship tilted quickly and drastically enough that Cloudy was thrown out the window. Fortunately for him he was caught by a yellow earth pony who clasped onto one of Cloudy's hind legs with his hoofs. He started to pull Cloudy up but he stopped him.

"I can see the drillers, don't pull me up just keep holding on!" He had to shout above the roar of the wind and the engines which were audible outside.

Beneath him the ground seemed to get farther away at every moment, the fall becoming worse every second. Cloudy forced his vertigo away and once more looked at the ground affirming in his mind that it was not moving, not that it mattered a fall from this height would kill him anyway.

Cloudy turned to his left and saw two of the 3 remaining drillers, they were now working on different sections. Cloudy held his pistol up to his face and fired hitting one of. Another shot back at Cloudy but inaccurately and Cloudy fired off 3 more shots one of which hit. Then the third pegasus breached a section and the ship lurched to the left once more. The yellow earth pony's grasp on Cloudy slipped and Cloudy felt the vertigo once more. The ground was far beneath him, he felt almost as if he was falling. But he wasn't, the yellow pony had a grasp on him, though it was slipping, but now he could see the last pegasus and he took the shot. It hit the pegasus in the wing, and the pegasus began the long fall down to the ground.

"Pull me up, pull me up!" Cloudy shouted and the earth pony hauled him through the window where they both collapsed onto the floor.

Cloudy leaned against the edge of the wall, he could now see the earth pony who had saved his life more clearly, he was bright yellow with brown hair and freckles.

"What's your name?" Cloudy asked him

"Midshipman Dragonhide sir, or Dragon for short."

"You saved my life, thank you ENSIGN Dragon," being a new and informal commander, Cloudy did not know that it was unheard of in the history of the earth pony airforce or navy to call a lower ranking pony by a nickname.

The yellow pony got up grinning from his new promotion and went back to the controls. The pony with a telescope called out.

"Captain, while the flying regiments are scattered the ground forces below are having trouble with mobile barricades."

Mobile barricades were a pegasus tactic that they could take advantage of by using their wings for support to stay on two hoofs for extended periods of time. Large groups of pegasi would stand on two hoofs and carry a large barrier, in earth terms it is basically a massive riot shield stretched out horizontally that is carried by many pegasi, except each pony has a hole for firing their gun out of. The bottom of the shield has spikes so it can be implanted into the ground and taken out again, this makes it movable cover that can be shot out of without becoming a target by peeking your head out.

Currently several groups of pegasi were carrying these and were forming a pincer around the advancing earth ponies. Several earth ponies were using mortars, which operate essentially the same way as on earth except instead of being implanted on the ground they are put on ponies backs. Then that pony sits down on their hind legs while the pony behind them loads and operates the mortar, this makes them highly mobile, the pegasi use them as well except while flying they aim downwards. However the mortar support was not enough to hold back these regiments and the earth ponies were increasingly losing to an enemy they could not attack back. Seeing as the walkers were busy assaulting the cannons on the edge of the town, it was up to the _Thunder Strike_ to destroy the mobile barricades.

"51 degrees down, 36 degrees left, FIRE!" Cloudy yelled.

The cannon recoiled back and seconds later two of the mobile barricade squads were hit from behind. The cannon explosion was actually enough to send the barricades flying into two earth ponies killing them however.

"2 degrees down, 4 degrees left, FIRE!" he barked again taking down the second group of mobile barricades. Losing the two squads meant the pegasus's pincer movement had failed and the earth ponies surrounded the last group of barricades which instantly dropped their barricades and flew skywards. Earth pony soldiers were excellent marksman, surpassing the skills of pegasi, and they quickly shot all of the pegasi attempting to fly away. The walkers had finished with the cannon emplacements and all that was left there was the rubble from the guns and bodies of the pegasi operating them. Though thunder cannons could fly they were easily destroyed by shooting their cloud bed, because of this they were only used in assaults, when defending areas the pegasi preferred ground based artillery.

Now Cloudy turned his attention to the town, it was a small town on the bark river, so small no one knew its name barely even the soldiers fighting the battle. It was a small collection of brick and mortar buildings, a large pegasus church dominated the town square. Cloudy guessed the that would be where the most resistance would be. His hunch was right, the pony with a telescope called out, "captain, I'm seeing some of the scattered pegasus groups rally in the town square. They've set up a few machine guns, mortars, and sand bags but and from what I can tell they've also taken cover in the buildings, we're not in range yet but we will be in a few minutes."

The telescope was on a stand near the large glass window at the front, Cloudy went over to it and looked through at the town square. It was packed with pegasi setting up emplacements and more were flying in and out of building windows getting ready for the attack.

"Inform the troops," Cloudy said to one of his men and he quickly ran to a window and started signaling the pegasus positions to the ground forces with semaphore flags.

By now the earth pony foot soldiers had joined up with the walkers and they were all progressing along the streets leading to the town square. When they were almost there the foot soldiers stopped behind some buildings as did the walkers, they were just out of sight of the pegasi. The cannon was now in range but Cloudy told them to hold it. One earth pony stepped out into the line of fire from the town square and demanded surrender from them, he was shot dead by the pegasus commander himself. Suddenly the earth pony lines burst forward from behind the buildings, guns blazing and the pegasi did the same.

At first the machine guns tore apart the earth pony infantry but then the walkers came and acted as cover for them while at the same time destroying the gun emplacements not just with their cannons but by walking into them as well. The walkers shot their cannons at the buildings which pegasi had been taking cover in obliterating walls and leaving them exposed to fire from earth pony infantry. Meanwhile the walkers' machine guns tore into the pegasi line while the earth ponies leapt over their fortifications like a living tide. Some walkers met death at the hands of mortars and pegasi practicing walker takedown methods. These consisted of either smashing through the glass canopy and killing the pilots, or ripping out clockwork in the knees so they fall over. One walker had a battering ram for arms instead of cannons and charged into a building knocking it down and then emerged from the rubble. Most of the earth pony forces were infantry however, and the town square quickly turned into a bloodbath as all strategy was lost in torrent of bayonets and swords and hoofs. Any essence of military structure was gone and they turned into animals desperately trying to survive, driven onwards through all the blood by that base instinct.

Daring not to fire on the town square itself for fear of hitting his own men, Cloudy instead focused on the church where a sniper had been tearing into the earth ponies. "Up 22 degrees, right 35 degrees, FIRE!" The steeple exploded near its base falling off of the church and onto a walker who had been fighting several pegasi, all of them walker and pegasus perished beneath the rubble. Eager not to repeat that folly Cloudy decided to fire on the roof of the church instead. The pegasi were now falling back into the church and the walkers were berating the walls with cannons trying to created larger entrance for themselves. "Up 4 degrees ,left 5 degrees, FIRE!" The roof shattered and fell inwards exposing the pegasi inside. "Maintain position, FIRE!" The cannon went straight through the hole into the church, many pegasi who had been taking cover from behind the pews were killed and the rest attempted to fly out of the hole in the roof. The AA walkers were ready though and they aimed their cannons for the hole. As soon as the pegasi flew through the hole the walkers erupted into fire killing any pegasus which left through there. The shells exploding above the hole essentially made it impossible to leave through and the remaining pegasi ran out the front door itself. They were killed as they came out the door by a line of earth ponies who fired when the door opened killing all of them. There were only 4 remaining pegasi who cowered inside the church waving a makeshift white flag torn from church robes they found inside.

The battle was over, the town and the surrounding area was ruined, and it would take 2 full days for all the smoke and dust to dissipate. The earth pony ground forces began clearing away bodies and setting up camp while the _Thunder Strike_ went over to a clearing to land. As they slowly let the vacuum be filled by air so they could land they saw several ponies near there landing zone. Cloudy left commander Cannon to control the bridge and the moment the _Thunder Strike_ touched down he opened the steel door at the center of the gondola and leapt out. He was greeted by 5 earth ponies with mechanics harnesses and some supplies, one of them, a gray one with a brown mane and tail, went up to him and asked.

"Do you need any repairs, we were supposed to be working on the walkers but too many were unsalvageable and those that were find didn't need many repairs, seeing as he had extra mechanics the commander sent us to you."

"Mmmhmm," Cloudy nodded, "well were mostly alright but we have 3 sections breached, if you could patch them up that would be great."

"Okay sure we'll talk to some of your men about the damage and get it done," he said smiling.

Cloudy went back to the ship surprisingly tired, but he noticed something, the men looked at him differently, they looked at him with respect, even a bit of fear. Despite the urge to go to bed he went back to the bridge, when he got there he poked his head through the door and asked.

"Cannon can I have a word with you."

Cannon did not go begrudgingly, he did what Cloudy said without hesitation and came with him away from the bridge.

"Now that I've commanded the men in battle, are they going to respect me now, are YOU going to respect me now," Cloudy asked hesitantly.

"Yes," Cannon responded gruffly, "they will respect you but not because you commanded them, but because you are like them, you have killed. Not with a cannon but with a pistol close enough to see their face."

"When have they killed," Cloudy asked angrily, he was becoming increasingly angry and hostile, and he didn't know why, "The war has only being going on a few weeks."

Cannon sighed, "all of these men have served on other airships before, crewing an airship is the hardest job in the military. Most airships aren't like this, they aren't meant for real fighting, they are meant for hopping from one city to another or scouting. Along the way, there have been patrols, pegasi too eager for a fight, we end up killing them, occasionally they kill us, it never made front page news, no one even cared. But mark my words, there isn't a single man here who hasn't gunned someone down, and now you have too, now you're one of us.

"Good," Cloudy said, but then he suddenly realized what he had said, a few weeks ago killing someone would have been a terrible thing to him. He had despised killers, despised anyone who could do that, and now he was one of them, and he thought that was good. What was becoming of him, he wondered, he reminded himself that he was a scientist, not a killer, not a soldier, this was merely until the war was over.

" I need to go to bed," Cloudy said, partly because he was tired, but mainly because he wanted to be alone.

"Goodbye captain," Cannon responded.

Cloudy didn't answer, he walked to his cabin and flopped down on his bed. He was a logical pony, a smart one, he realized that it wasn't just the 4 pegasi drillers. It was all of them, the pegasi on the ground with mobile barricades, all 50 drillers, the pegasi inside the cathedral, even the walker pilots who the steeple had fallen on. He had killed them all. Cloudy was a dreamer, he imagined, he thought, but for the first time in his life he couldn't think of anything beyond the dead bodies of those he had just killed.

**There it is, the longest chapter yet, and in my opinion also the best. I decided to use naval ranks for the earth pony airforce. Remember to review and I will make you into an OC (original character) but if you have a username that's kind of hard to make into a pony name, could you maybe send a review that describes your OC, name, looks etc. Anyway hope you enjoyed it, keep reviewing if you have ideas or want an OC made out of you.**


	9. The trains

**Newest chapter, I didn't have any opportunities for an OC sorry, also the next chapter will have no opportunities for an OC. Sorry again, but I promise if you have reviewed and aren't in this chapter or the next you will be in chapter 11. Anyway enjoy, review, share this story with others, all that good stuff.**

**9. The trains**

Coming closer with each step was Dawn, the port city of the earth ponies. The city itself was oddly named because it was on the western coast and to observe dawn in that city one would have to look away from the ocean. It is believed that it was named after an ancient myth. In this myth a pony was cursed by an evil unicorn so that when the sun came up he would turn to ashes. To stay alive he ran west avoiding the sun but when he got to the Luna Coast he could run no farther because of the ocean. So he accepted his fate and let the dawn come, supposedly the city was built on the site where he gave up running.

The city was quite different since its founding however, where there were once were thatched huts and a small pier there were great stone buildings, long streets lined with gas lamps and a massive dry dock with cranes lifting cargo in and out all day long.

Sartos and Carth were walking along railroad tracks going closer to the city, from here they could barely see buildings but the did see the smoke rising from factories and the glimmer of light off cranes in the noonday sun. Carth handed a canteen to Sartos and he gladly grabbed it with his mouth swigging it down, the water felt good on his dry throat. His hooves cracked the rough dirt with every step and he felt weighted down by all the sweat that had collected on his clothes in the heat.

Carth whistled and said, "that city doesn't feel like its getting any closer."

They had been traveling through the forest for a week, after leaving the forest they had simply followed the train tracks through the desert for two more days.

Sartos stopped chugging the canteen and put it back in Carth's saddlebag, "the train will be here any minute, grab on quickly enough and we should be in Port Dawn shortly."

"After you take care of the commander," Carth reminded Sartos.

Suddenly Sartos's ears pricked up, he dropped down and put a hoof on the train track, a small puff of smoke rose behind him.

He jumped to his hooves, "train," he said quickly, he checked to make sure his saddlebags were firmly on and waited for the train to come, Carth did the same. The train got closer, the rumble of its engine became audible, off the horizon the iron began to appear, it got closer and closer, louder and louder. Soon it was there, it blazed past them, but Sartos was quicker. He jumped and managed to slip his hoof through a rung of the ladder running up the side. His legs were trailing behind him and he pulled them to the ladder and climbed to the roof of the train. Once on top he looked behind him and saw that Carth had managed to get on as well, Carth gestured for him to come over and Sartos followed. Keeping low to the roof, Sartos managed to walk over to Carth, while he could not hear above the noise of the train Carth gestured him over to a small latch which he undid and jumped through into a room.

The room was empty thankfully, it was nice and plush, it contained two red couches on each side complete with pillows and a glass coffee table between them. Carth slumped down on one and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Almost thought I wasn't going to make it on," he said jovially grinning a massive grin.

"But you did," Sartos said smiling as well, "we don't have much time, when this train stops at Port Dawn the officer will get off, I need to get going."

"Good luck," Carth called after him as Sartos bounded off one wall out the hatch, pegasus spies were well trained in free running.

Back on the roof Sartos navigated his way to each room's hatch, fortunately for him the hatches opened quietly and he finally found the one he was looking for, the first class room with a military officer inside. While the other room had been nice, this was absolute luxury, there were the same two couches but also a fine rug, several pieces of art mounted on the walls, and a plush bed. Sartos jumped inside and quickly pulled out his pistol and held it up to the officer's head. The officer was a blue pony with a well groomed tan mane, he was wearing a green pressed officers uniform, marked with ribbons.

"What do you-" the officer stopped as he saw Sartos's gun.

"Listen very carefully" Sartos said calmly, "when this train stops at Port Dawn, I want you to get out, go to the telegraph station and send a military telegraph to Port Dawn military command. It should say exactly this 'The pegasi are going to invade by land within the week, the cannons need to be prepared' have you got that?"

The officer nodded.

"Good," Sartos said smiling "sit down."

The officer sat down on the couch, he stayed there for several minutes with Sartos pointing a gun at him until the train pulled into the Port Dawn station.

"Tell the guards outside that you are going to remain a little while in here and that they can go," Sartos said.

The officer poked his head out the door and relayed the message to the guards, Sartos watched as they left the train. After the guards had left Sartos opened the door of the room and stepped out into the hall, his gun discreetly aimed at the officer. The hall was crowded with ponies and he had a hard time not losing the officer amongst the masses, but he managed to get outside the train with the officer still in his sights.

The train station was bustling with people moving to and fro, on and off trains. There were pipes venting steam everywhere and large bronze columns holding up a glass awning over the station. Trains arrived and departed and the massive clock ticked the progressions of each second. Earth ponies in blue uniforms checked tickets while shops and café's were overloaded with customers. Pigeons roosted on the rafters holding up the awning and a cat silently padded along the cold green and white tile floor attempting to steal a hunk of bread from a nearby vendor. Children ran through the crowds and were cautioned by parents not to fall down onto the train tracks.

Sartos walked alongside the officer to a small concrete building in the station marked 'TELEGRAPHS'. Once inside they ignored all the ponies busy typing telegraphs with their hooves and went to a small desk at the back with a pony sitting behind it. He was a red earth pony with a blonde mane, he was wearing a crisp gray military uniform marking him as a non combatant.

Earth pony military uniforms followed 4 subsets, the non combat uniform was gray, given to any pony not active in a military base but still employed by them. A green uniform was given to those in the army, a tan one for the air force, and a navy blue uniform for those in the navy. This was the formal dress code however, most earth ponies wore specific equipment to suit what they were doing such as a mechanic wearing a utility vest.

Seeing as he was an officer, the earth pony asked for his "officer identification" after the officer said a list of numbers the telegraph operator got up from the desk. Handing him a piece of paper translating Morse code and said.

"Seeing as you're an officer you have to do this yourself, I'm not allowed to hear orders given by any other officers than my own."

The officer Sartos was with unfortunately did not know Morse code, and after a painstaking process through which he had to constantly check the sheet explaining Morse code the officer sent the telegraph. Sartos could read Morse code and through listening while he was sending it Sartos knew the officer had sent the desired message.

"What now?" the officer asked indignantly when he was finished.

"Now you come with me outside," Sartos replied, in truth he didn't know what to do, he was supposed to kill him, but where, it was too crowded here.

Fortunately for him Carth was waiting in the station.

"Hiya," he said, "while you were taking your sweet time in there I took a little trip to the bank."

The bank was the place where pegasus spies got all their information while in the field. Each spy in earth pony territory had a safety deposit box, inside this box orders and money were waiting for them, these were put here by earth ponies paid off by the pegasi. The earth pony military assumed that all spying was done by paid off earth ponies, in fact all they did was put orders in the bank. Not only were they not spies they didn't even know that they were being paid by pegasi.

Carth retrieved a manila envelope from his saddlebag, "I haven't looked through the whole thing yet but I do know we are supposed to head to Ponyville, I took some money as well, I even bought us a train ticket," Carth said grinning.

"So what to we do with him?" Carth said after putting the envelope back in his saddlebag.

"Lets catch the train first," Sartos replied, "lead the way."

They navigated through the crowds of ponies and across the platforms until they reached a platform with a train marked 673, the earth pony railway network was so vast that no one even bothered to name trains anymore except some attached conductors. They stepped onboard as an earth pony in a blue uniform checked their tickets, fortunately Carth had remembered to buy a ticket for the officer. They made their way to their cabin which was designed as it had been on the previous train. The officer walked to the opposite side of the room from Sartos, turned around and asked indignantly."

"What now?"

He never got an answer, Sartos drew his pistol quick as lightening and shot him straight through the head. His body went limp and was about to fall to the ground before Carth rushed over and quickly lifted up his body. Carth carried him over to the window and unlatched it, the officer's legs were still twitching, Carth lifted up the body and pushed it out of the window. It hit the railway and skidded along, getting torn up by the metal tracks before coming to a rest as the train left it behind.

Carth fell back onto the couch and clapped his hooves together.

"There, no evidence," he said still smiling, he had a point though, there was not a drop of blood on the floor, nor evidence of a gun shot, soon the vultures would eat what was left of his body outside, and than he was just a set of bones and a missing officer.

Sartos took a heavy sigh and sat down on the couch across from Carth.

"So lets see what our new orders are," he said.

"First let me go to the dining car," Carth replied.

After fifteen minutes he came back with a large bottle of expensive wine in his mouth and a plate of hay fries on his back. He set them both down on the table between them, and clutched the bottle of wine between his two hoofs. He put his mouth on the cork and yanked back tearing it off. Suddenly he grabbed the wine bottle into his mouth and began to chug the whole thing straight down. Sartos watched, his face a mix of horror and amazement.

"You… know that's going to kill you… right?" Sartos said unsurely as Carth was chugging it down.

Carth finished and threw the bottle out the window, part of it clipped the edge and shattered. After taking a deep breath Carth replied "yup!" Grinning as usual, then he started to dig into the hay fries.

"Want some" he said mumbling through a mouth full of fries.

"No thanks," Sartos replied, "not really a fan of hay fries."

Carth swallowed them and asked.

"So how'd you become a spy?"

"Pretty boring story really" Sartos replied, "I was drafted at 22, applied to join PIET and was accepted, I trained there for the longest time, ran some spy missions, war was declared and now I'm here. What about you, where were you before the military?"

"The madhouse," he replied.

Sartos chuckled for a moment but then resumed his questioning, "really though, where?"

"I told you, I'm not kidding I was in an insane asylum," Carth's tone was completely serious, his look was as emotionless as a dead pony's, Sartos was good at reading people, part of why he became a spy, Carth was telling the truth.

Sartos instinctively edged backwards along the couch.

"You're insane?" he said softly.

Carth sighed, "there is nothing worse a society can do than lock someone in a madhouse, not because its so terrible in there, but because of why. Lets say society suddenly decided that not liking hay fries is insane. You would be taken and thrown into the asylum simply because society had classified you as insane, but in truth that's just who you are."

"But there is a big difference between not liking hay fries and hearing voices in you head," Sartos blurted out, than he shut his mouth remembering he was dealing with an insane person and he had to be careful.

"Is it really? Sure hearing voices in your head is insane to you, but what about to someone who does, its perfectly normal to them, but suddenly they are branded as insane just because society thinks so. What if everyone but you heard voices in their heads, I bet you would be sent to the insane asylum if that was the case."

Sartos thought about this for a while than asked, "why did you get put in there?"

"Me, I don't believe in the gods, that's why, and if you want to shoot me now just because of it than get it over with."

Sartos was stunned, no pegasus he had ever known was like this, to not believe in the gods! He did briefly consider shooting him, but than he thought about, this man was his friend. After staring at Carth for about 5 minutes Sartos finally said.

"You can believe whatever the buck you want."

"HAHA!" Carth laughed happily, "finally someone gets it!, society sure didn't though, they were used to earth pony non believers, they killed them, but what of a pegasus it was unheard of to not be religious. So in the end the only reasonable conclusion was that I was insane." Carth said sarcastically, "when they found out about it they locked me up in that place for 5 damn years."

"But then you escaped," Sartos added.

"Escape, no, I pretended to have "seen the light" so anyway they assumed I was no longer insane and let me go. I had no money so I joined the military and signed on as a survivalist, ever since I've been escorting people through the wilderness."

"But what if someone finds out you don't believe in the gods?"

"Its not if but WHEN, I try to keep it hidden, I go to church, pray before meals when others are there, but one day people will notice, they'll notice slight mannerisms in how I speak, how I never pay attention in church, that I forget to pray without being reminded, maybe I will tell someone who isn't as trustworthy as I thought. But they will find out, it's hard to fake believing in something that people devote their lives to. That's why I'm so reckless in case you were wondering, I may only live to be 60, but if I do, I probably would have already been in the madhouse for 10 years." They sat in silence for several minutes when suddenly Carth got up and walked over to the window, he unlatched it and vomited uncontrollably for what seemed to last forever, then he stumbled back to the couch and fell down upon it.

"Never mind," Carth said "I am insane, I drank that whole bottle in one gulp."

Sartos laughed finally relieving the tension between them, than Carth retrieved the manila envelope from his saddlebags, which were lying in the corner of the room. He sat it down on the table and spilled out its contents, a letter and a map of Ponyville as well as a black and white photograph.

Photography was finally becoming accessible for average ponies, newspapers were starting to print them regularly and PIET managed to get some copies of photographs for its operatives. Unfortunately cameras were still large and clunky but it was getting much quicker to take photographs. The photo was of a tall earth pony in full military dress, Sartos ignored it and grabbed the letter and read it out loud

It read as such "Sartos, hopefully your last assignment went well and you have received this and are in good health. The earth ponies have continued their assault on the bark river and in our attempts to defend it our forces have been spread too thinly over the area. We need to know where they are going to attack so you along with many operatives will be finding out troop movements. There is a register containing many of the walker movements and walker production details of the earth pony army. We don't know where it is but we know somepony who does, his picture and name is enclosed, we don't know his location except that he is in Ponyville. Find out where the register is from him, after you've done that, kill him."

"Well, we've got our orders, let's get some shut eye, train should arrive in Ponyville tomorrow," Carth said as he turned around and slept on his couch. Sartos simply sighed put down the envelope and did the same.

In his night terrors, he was usually chased by something, attacked, drowned, hurt, but not in this one. He was simply in a white room, with no door, all that was there was him and the body of the officer he had killed. The body simply laid there, on the floor, a bullet between his eyes and a lifeless expression. Every time Sartos turned around he was somehow there, but he didn't close his eyes, for when he did he saw far worse. He saw himself as he kill him. So he just sat there, normally in dreams time skips or moves quickly, but here everything was moving slowly. He sat there for hours and hours unable to look away, and he cried and pleaded sorry but none of it made the body come back to life.

He awoke for once without attacking something, so instead he just sat up and tried to calm himself of his night terrors as he always had since he was a kid. He sang the age old lullaby to himself, "winter wrap up" was so thoroughly ingrained into his head from waking up every morning and singing it to calm himself. He sang to himself for what seemed like forever when the train lurched to a halt. Carth woke up immediately and opened the shutter, outside the desert had been replaced by train station, they had arrived in Ponyville.

**Newest chapter, and yes they are getting longer, sorry about the no OC's once again there wont be any in the next one either but I promise you there will be more in chapter 11, I thought that leaving the officer nameless would be best, no one wants to see their OC die, or at least honorably if they do. There will be more political views later on but they do not necessarily reflect my opinion. If you are offended by any of the views brought up, you can ignore them and once again they do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion. Please review and keep reading.**


	10. The battle of the Riker Mountains

**Newest chapter, I didn't have any opportunities for an OC sorry, also the next chapter will have no opportunities for an OC. Sorry again, but I promise if you have reviewed and aren't in this chapter or the next you will be in chapter 11. Anyway enjoy, review, share this story with others, all that good stuff.**

**9. The trains**

Coming closer with each step was Dawn, the port city of the earth ponies. The city itself was oddly named because it was on the western coast and to observe dawn in that city one would have to look away from the ocean. It is believed that it was named after an ancient myth. In this myth a pony was cursed by an evil unicorn so that when the sun came up he would turn to ashes. To stay alive he ran west avoiding the sun but when he got to the Luna Coast he could run no farther because of the ocean. So he accepted his fate and let the dawn come, supposedly the city was built on the site where he gave up running.

The city was quite different since its founding however, where there were once were thatched huts and a small pier there were great stone buildings, long streets lined with gas lamps and a massive dry dock with cranes lifting cargo in and out all day long.

Sartos and Carth were walking along railroad tracks going closer to the city, from here they could barely see buildings but the did see the smoke rising from factories and the glimmer of light off cranes in the noonday sun. Carth handed a canteen to Sartos and he gladly grabbed it with his mouth swigging it down, the water felt good on his dry throat. His hooves cracked the rough dirt with every step and he felt weighted down by all the sweat that had collected on his clothes in the heat.

Carth whistled and said, "that city doesn't feel like its getting any closer."

They had been traveling through the forest for a week, after leaving the forest they had simply followed the train tracks through the desert for two more days.

Sartos stopped chugging the canteen and put it back in Carth's saddlebag, "the train will be here any minute, grab on quickly enough and we should be in Port Dawn shortly."

"After you take care of the commander," Carth reminded Sartos.

Suddenly Sartos's ears pricked up, he dropped down and put a hoof on the train track, a small puff of smoke rose behind him.

He jumped to his hooves, "train," he said quickly, he checked to make sure his saddlebags were firmly on and waited for the train to come, Carth did the same. The train got closer, the rumble of its engine became audible, off the horizon the iron began to appear, it got closer and closer, louder and louder. Soon it was there, it blazed past them, but Sartos was quicker. He jumped and managed to slip his hoof through a rung of the ladder running up the side. His legs were trailing behind him and he pulled them to the ladder and climbed to the roof of the train. Once on top he looked behind him and saw that Carth had managed to get on as well, Carth gestured for him to come over and Sartos followed. Keeping low to the roof, Sartos managed to walk over to Carth, while he could not hear above the noise of the train Carth gestured him over to a small latch which he undid and jumped through into a room.

The room was empty thankfully, it was nice and plush, it contained two red couches on each side complete with pillows and a glass coffee table between them. Carth slumped down on one and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Almost thought I wasn't going to make it on," he said jovially grinning a massive grin.

"But you did," Sartos said smiling as well, "we don't have much time, when this train stops at Port Dawn the officer will get off, I need to get going."

"Good luck," Carth called after him as Sartos bounded off one wall out the hatch, pegasus spies were well trained in free running.

Back on the roof Sartos navigated his way to each room's hatch, fortunately for him the hatches opened quietly and he finally found the one he was looking for, the first class room with a military officer inside. While the other room had been nice, this was absolute luxury, there were the same two couches but also a fine rug, several pieces of art mounted on the walls, and a plush bed. Sartos jumped inside and quickly pulled out his pistol and held it up to the officer's head. The officer was a blue pony with a well groomed tan mane, he was wearing a green pressed officers uniform, marked with ribbons.

"What do you-" the officer stopped as he saw Sartos's gun.

"Listen very carefully" Sartos said calmly, "when this train stops at Port Dawn, I want you to get out, go to the telegraph station and send a military telegraph to Port Dawn military command. It should say exactly this 'The pegasi are going to invade by land within the week, the cannons need to be prepared' have you got that?"

The officer nodded.

"Good," Sartos said smiling "sit down."

The officer sat down on the couch, he stayed there for several minutes with Sartos pointing a gun at him until the train pulled into the Port Dawn station.

"Tell the guards outside that you are going to remain a little while in here and that they can go," Sartos said.

The officer poked his head out the door and relayed the message to the guards, Sartos watched as they left the train. After the guards had left Sartos opened the door of the room and stepped out into the hall, his gun discreetly aimed at the officer. The hall was crowded with ponies and he had a hard time not losing the officer amongst the masses, but he managed to get outside the train with the officer still in his sights.

The train station was bustling with people moving to and fro, on and off trains. There were pipes venting steam everywhere and large bronze columns holding up a glass awning over the station. Trains arrived and departed and the massive clock ticked the progressions of each second. Earth ponies in blue uniforms checked tickets while shops and café's were overloaded with customers. Pigeons roosted on the rafters holding up the awning and a cat silently padded along the cold green and white tile floor attempting to steal a hunk of bread from a nearby vendor. Children ran through the crowds and were cautioned by parents not to fall down onto the train tracks.

Sartos walked alongside the officer to a small concrete building in the station marked 'TELEGRAPHS'. Once inside they ignored all the ponies busy typing telegraphs with their hooves and went to a small desk at the back with a pony sitting behind it. He was a red earth pony with a blonde mane, he was wearing a crisp gray military uniform marking him as a non combatant.

Earth pony military uniforms followed 4 subsets, the non combat uniform was gray, given to any pony not active in a military base but still employed by them. A green uniform was given to those in the army, a tan one for the air force, and a navy blue uniform for those in the navy. This was the formal dress code however, most earth ponies wore specific equipment to suit what they were doing such as a mechanic wearing a utility vest.

Seeing as he was an officer, the earth pony asked for his "officer identification" after the officer said a list of numbers the telegraph operator got up from the desk. Handing him a piece of paper translating Morse code and said.

"Seeing as you're an officer you have to do this yourself, I'm not allowed to hear orders given by any other officers than my own."

The officer Sartos was with unfortunately did not know Morse code, and after a painstaking process through which he had to constantly check the sheet explaining Morse code the officer sent the telegraph. Sartos could read Morse code and through listening while he was sending it Sartos knew the officer had sent the desired message.

"What now?" the officer asked indignantly when he was finished.

"Now you come with me outside," Sartos replied, in truth he didn't know what to do, he was supposed to kill him, but where, it was too crowded here.

Fortunately for him Carth was waiting in the station.

"Hiya," he said, "while you were taking your sweet time in there I took a little trip to the bank."

The bank was the place where pegasus spies got all their information while in the field. Each spy in earth pony territory had a safety deposit box, inside this box orders and money were waiting for them, these were put here by earth ponies paid off by the pegasi. The earth pony military assumed that all spying was done by paid off earth ponies, in fact all they did was put orders in the bank. Not only were they not spies they didn't even know that they were being paid by pegasi.

Carth retrieved a manila envelope from his saddlebag, "I haven't looked through the whole thing yet but I do know we are supposed to head to Ponyville, I took some money as well, I even bought us a train ticket," Carth said grinning.

"So what to we do with him?" Carth said after putting the envelope back in his saddlebag.

"Lets catch the train first," Sartos replied, "lead the way."

They navigated through the crowds of ponies and across the platforms until they reached a platform with a train marked 673, the earth pony railway network was so vast that no one even bothered to name trains anymore except some attached conductors. They stepped onboard as an earth pony in a blue uniform checked their tickets, fortunately Carth had remembered to buy a ticket for the officer. They made their way to their cabin which was designed as it had been on the previous train. The officer walked to the opposite side of the room from Sartos, turned around and asked indignantly."

"What now?"

He never got an answer, Sartos drew his pistol quick as lightening and shot him straight through the head. His body went limp and was about to fall to the ground before Carth rushed over and quickly lifted up his body. Carth carried him over to the window and unlatched it, the officer's legs were still twitching, Carth lifted up the body and pushed it out of the window. It hit the railway and skidded along, getting torn up by the metal tracks before coming to a rest as the train left it behind.

Carth fell back onto the couch and clapped his hooves together.

"There, no evidence," he said still smiling, he had a point though, there was not a drop of blood on the floor, nor evidence of a gun shot, soon the vultures would eat what was left of his body outside, and than he was just a set of bones and a missing officer.

Sartos took a heavy sigh and sat down on the couch across from Carth.

"So lets see what our new orders are," he said.

"First let me go to the dining car," Carth replied.

After fifteen minutes he came back with a large bottle of expensive wine in his mouth and a plate of hay fries on his back. He set them both down on the table between them, and clutched the bottle of wine between his two hoofs. He put his mouth on the cork and yanked back tearing it off. Suddenly he grabbed the wine bottle into his mouth and began to chug the whole thing straight down. Sartos watched, his face a mix of horror and amazement.

"You… know that's going to kill you… right?" Sartos said unsurely as Carth was chugging it down.

Carth finished and threw the bottle out the window, part of it clipped the edge and shattered. After taking a deep breath Carth replied "yup!" Grinning as usual, then he started to dig into the hay fries.

"Want some" he said mumbling through a mouth full of fries.

"No thanks," Sartos replied, "not really a fan of hay fries."

Carth swallowed them and asked.

"So how'd you become a spy?"

"Pretty boring story really" Sartos replied, "I was drafted at 22, applied to join PIET and was accepted, I trained there for the longest time, ran some spy missions, war was declared and now I'm here. What about you, where were you before the military?"

"The madhouse," he replied.

Sartos chuckled for a moment but then resumed his questioning, "really though, where?"

"I told you, I'm not kidding I was in an insane asylum," Carth's tone was completely serious, his look was as emotionless as a dead pony's, Sartos was good at reading people, part of why he became a spy, Carth was telling the truth.

Sartos instinctively edged backwards along the couch.

"You're insane?" he said softly.

Carth sighed, "there is nothing worse a society can do than lock someone in a madhouse, not because its so terrible in there, but because of why. Lets say society suddenly decided that not liking hay fries is insane. You would be taken and thrown into the asylum simply because society had classified you as insane, but in truth that's just who you are."

"But there is a big difference between not liking hay fries and hearing voices in you head," Sartos blurted out, than he shut his mouth remembering he was dealing with an insane person and he had to be careful.

"Is it really? Sure hearing voices in your head is insane to you, but what about to someone who does, its perfectly normal to them, but suddenly they are branded as insane just because society thinks so. What if everyone but you heard voices in their heads, I bet you would be sent to the insane asylum if that was the case."

Sartos thought about this for a while than asked, "why did you get put in there?"

"Me, I don't believe in the gods, that's why, and if you want to shoot me now just because of it than get it over with."

Sartos was stunned, no pegasus he had ever known was like this, to not believe in the gods! He did briefly consider shooting him, but than he thought about, this man was his friend. After staring at Carth for about 5 minutes Sartos finally said.

"You can believe whatever the buck you want."

"HAHA!" Carth laughed happily, "finally someone gets it!, society sure didn't though, they were used to earth pony non believers, they killed them, but what of a pegasus it was unheard of to not be religious. So in the end the only reasonable conclusion was that I was insane." Carth said sarcastically, "when they found out about it they locked me up in that place for 5 damn years."

"But then you escaped," Sartos added.

"Escape, no, I pretended to have "seen the light" so anyway they assumed I was no longer insane and let me go. I had no money so I joined the military and signed on as a survivalist, ever since I've been escorting people through the wilderness."

"But what if someone finds out you don't believe in the gods?"

"Its not if but WHEN, I try to keep it hidden, I go to church, pray before meals when others are there, but one day people will notice, they'll notice slight mannerisms in how I speak, how I never pay attention in church, that I forget to pray without being reminded, maybe I will tell someone who isn't as trustworthy as I thought. But they will find out, it's hard to fake believing in something that people devote their lives to. That's why I'm so reckless in case you were wondering, I may only live to be 60, but if I do, I probably would have already been in the madhouse for 10 years." They sat in silence for several minutes when suddenly Carth got up and walked over to the window, he unlatched it and vomited uncontrollably for what seemed to last forever, then he stumbled back to the couch and fell down upon it.

"Never mind," Carth said "I am insane, I drank that whole bottle in one gulp."

Sartos laughed finally relieving the tension between them, than Carth retrieved the manila envelope from his saddlebags, which were lying in the corner of the room. He sat it down on the table and spilled out its contents, a letter and a map of Ponyville as well as a black and white photograph.

Photography was finally becoming accessible for average ponies, newspapers were starting to print them regularly and PIET managed to get some copies of photographs for its operatives. Unfortunately cameras were still large and clunky but it was getting much quicker to take photographs. The photo was of a tall earth pony in full military dress, Sartos ignored it and grabbed the letter and read it out loud

It read as such "Sartos, hopefully your last assignment went well and you have received this and are in good health. The earth ponies have continued their assault on the bark river and in our attempts to defend it our forces have been spread too thinly over the area. We need to know where they are going to attack so you along with many operatives will be finding out troop movements. There is a register containing many of the walker movements and walker production details of the earth pony army. We don't know where it is but we know somepony who does, his picture and name is enclosed, we don't know his location except that he is in Ponyville. Find out where the register is from him, after you've done that, kill him."

"Well, we've got our orders, let's get some shut eye, train should arrive in Ponyville tomorrow," Carth said as he turned around and slept on his couch. Sartos simply sighed put down the envelope and did the same.

In his night terrors, he was usually chased by something, attacked, drowned, hurt, but not in this one. He was simply in a white room, with no door, all that was there was him and the body of the officer he had killed. The body simply laid there, on the floor, a bullet between his eyes and a lifeless expression. Every time Sartos turned around he was somehow there, but he didn't close his eyes, for when he did he saw far worse. He saw himself as he kill him. So he just sat there, normally in dreams time skips or moves quickly, but here everything was moving slowly. He sat there for hours and hours unable to look away, and he cried and pleaded sorry but none of it made the body come back to life.

He awoke for once without attacking something, so instead he just sat up and tried to calm himself of his night terrors as he always had since he was a kid. He sang the age old lullaby to himself, "winter wrap up" was so thoroughly ingrained into his head from waking up every morning and singing it to calm himself. He sang to himself for what seemed like forever when the train lurched to a halt. Carth woke up immediately and opened the shutter, outside the desert had been replaced by train station, they had arrived in Ponyville.

**Newest chapter, and yes they are getting longer, sorry about the no OC's once again there wont be any in the next one either but I promise you there will be more in chapter 11, I thought that leaving the officer nameless would be best, no one wants to see their OC die, or at least honorably if they do. There will be more political views later on but they do not necessarily reflect my opinion. If you are offended by any of the views brought up, you can ignore them and once again they do not necessarily reflect my personal opinion. Please review and keep reading.**


	11. Aboard the Cobalt

**Newest chapter sorry for the long wait, hope you guys are still reading, as promised there are O.C.'s in this one, right now I'm very open to any input on the story so please review, actually review even if you don't have ideas, I want to know if my writing is good, how my grammar and spelling are etc. Also if people see I have a lot of reviews they might be more inclined to read this story, basically just review, anyway I haven't gotten any reviews recently so I was hoping for some more, I need to know what you guys think of this after all. By the way if you need to compare the pony technology to earth technology to get an idea for what its like, just assume the military is kind of like it was during WW1 (except for walkers and vacuum dirigibles) but the society and cities are basically late 1800's. Anyway without further ado the newest chapter, enjoy.**

**11. Aboard the Cobalt**

His entire wing was numb, he could feel nothing, it was as if that part of his body was gone, not removed simply as if it never existed. His head was much worse however, it felt as if inside his veins his blood was rushing around like a flood. He could almost inherently feel a general bodily idea of being unwell rather than his symptoms, it was as if his body was trying to tell him quite simply "you're hurt." However his body had decided to skip the pain and just go straight to the general message, maybe his nervous system was finally bored with the pain from his wing and just decided to skip all the unnecessary discomfort. After all he knew he was injured, he knew that it was bad for him, the pain wasn't necessary at all.

Illiyad snapped out of his phlegmatic pondering and realized he was lying down in a plush white bed in a creaking wooden room. He turned his head very slightly to see a bandage around his wing. He slowly became aware that the room was gently rocking from side to side, he had found himself aboard a ship.

The room itself was quite spartan, across from his bed were two plain chairs, he had a small bedside table with a bell on it and winged trident symbol above his bed. He was separated form the rest of the room by one curtain, the other side was also curtained but it was drawn back revealing a red pegasus with a black mane and spectacles in a similar bed.

The red pegasus sat up in bed and smiled at him.

"Hello," he said cheerfully, "glad to see your awake , no one else is here, no one to talk to for 3, days, I've already read all of 2 books here, did you know that ships don't have libraries."

"Please, just tell me, where are we?" Illiyad said exasperatedly, he was not in the mood for a conversation.

"You my friend are aboard the _Cobalt_, pegasus ship, horizon class, interesting actually, the naval classes range from, and this is going from smallest to largest, dasher class, tidal class, horizon class, that's us, clipper class, rammer class, and finally hurricane class. Interesting names actually, these are named after ponies not things, hurricane class is named after general hurricane, last leader of an independent pegasus nation before Celestian times. Considering he ruled during that nation's downfall it doesn't bode well for us if we are naming ships after him, these naval types need to read more history. I mean you don't even want to know what happened to the pony they named dasher class after. Actually you probably do want to know, I always want to know when people say that, anyway Rainbow Dash wanted to start an independent pegasus nation after Celestia died. When she announced this, Twilight Sparkle, founder of the unicorn hierarchy, executed her, and Twilight was Dash's best friend!"

The red pegasus blasted through those sentences rapidly before taking a breath and continuing to talk to Illiyad in the same manner.

"Anyway, you were found on shore with a bullet in your wing- yes I know that, what about after," Illiyad interjected.

The red pegasus continued, "They brought you here, removed the bullet bandaged you up, let you rest here for about a week, now you've woken up, I reckon you have one more week before you can take that bandage off."

"How'd you know all that, how I came here, and how long it will take me to get this bandage off?" Illiyad inquired.

"Cause I'm your doctor of course," he responded cheerfully.

Illiyad was stunned, this buffoon was his doctor, "So why are you in that bed," he inquired.

"Cause my leg's broken, see," he pointed with his fore hoof at one of his hind legs, "there was a battle not 3 days ago, you slept right through it. The earth ponies met us head on, we had equal forces but we were far too fast for them, they took 3 times our losses. Anyway in all the commotion I got knocked down the stairs, everyone else is all right though they never attacked this ship, but we sure attacked them. Anyway now we're headed to Port Dawn, there are still a lot of us, the fleet were with contains most of the pegasus navy. They recruited me here as an extra doctor, normally I was a civil doctor but drafts eh, not that you were drafted you're a church member right. Well I'd say the gods were helping you because you sure recovered fast from that gunshot, how'd it happen by the way, oh I'm forgetting my manners, name's Lou." He stuck out his hoof expectantly waiting for it to be bumped.

It amazed Illiyad how fast this pony spoke, and how fast he changed subjects, Illiyad accepted the gesture however and hoof bumped him, "Pravost Illiyad, nice to meet you Louis."

"Nope just Lou, that's my full name, see my parents wanted a filly which they were gonna name Marylou but well I was a Colt, as you can see, so anyway they named me Lou, funny people my parents, lots to tell you about them."

Illiyad leaned back in his bed and softly groaned, he was going to be stuck here with this pony for a week…

Over the course of the week Illiyad listened to countless stories and recollections from Lou. He had tried to steer his conversations towards things like news of the war, aside from that he tried to avoid stories about his parents and hear more academic stories.

He had to give Lou one thing, he was a walking library, he knew much beyond medical knowledge, math, science, history, massive amounts of history. Eventually he began to enjoy Lou's stories on pre revolution history and on the latest scientific and mathematical theories. Some of these theories were borderline heretical, but Illiyad didn't mention it he simply put at the back of his mind for the next time he could speak to a church official. After the whole week however, Illiyad was beginning to call Lou a friend.

They had their meals brought to them and they managed to pray for 5 minutes a day, Illiyad did it for a lot longer though. For pegasi if you are sick you are permitted not to go to church for 5 minutes a day provided that you pray for 5 minutes.

After a week Lou's leg had fully healed and he had finally taken the bandage off Illiyad's wing. The feeling had returned and he could now move it slightly but it would be several more days until he could fly once more.

Illiyad jumped out of bed and for the first time pulled back the other curtain in the room, there was another hospital bed but it was empty, and the door was to the right of that bed. Illiyad opened the door with Lou close behind him and walked out into a wooden hallway, it was full of sailors moving to and fro completing their daily tasks in the strict orderly manner that was common of daily life aboard the _Cobalt. _It was a welcome sight to Illiyad who had seen only two people in the past week, Lou and the pony who brought food to them.

Lou, whose foot had completely healed was now pushing his way through the sailors up to the deck, Illiyad followed him up the stairs. They plodded up the wooden stairs and eventually came to a steel hatch, pegasus ships were a hybrid of wood and steel. As opposed to the pure metal earth pony ships, pegasus ships were wooden on the inside to make them lighter but on the outside were heavily plated in steel.

Outside the wind howled loudly, it was easy to see why nopony was on the deck, it was impossible to hear anything but the wind and the ship was going so fast that it was hard not be swept off the deck by the combination of those two. Most often pegasi spent their time inside the deck or control tower, the wind was made to be so strong most pegasi didn't even fly around the ship. The crew only started going on deck and flying when ships slowed down, and that was only when a battle was happening.

If one could withstand the wind the deck was magnificent however, spray came up from the ocean wetting the deck as the ship sliced through the waters. The tall white sails were high on the masts and captured the roaring wind blowing forward and carrying the ship with them. There were many lined up high along the 4 masts all of them looking as if they wanted to blow away and be carried by the winds to places far away but were held down by the stout masts. The deck itself was a rough gray but the sides of the ship could be seen glaring in all their metallic brilliance as the noonday sun shown down upon it.

The rest of the fleet could be seen as well, it was massive, hundreds of ships, maybe thousands. Many were larger than the _Cobalt_ and had even more sails and were covered in artillery. The _Cobalt _was merely horizon class but from here the hurricane class ships could be seen. They were massive, each one had around 50 sails, the control tower stretched very high and the deck was covered in artillery, hundreds of cannons big and small, the _Cobalt_ had a mere 4 double barreled guns on its deck.

Lou yelled something to Illiyad but he didn't hear it, Lou gestured for him to come inside. They went back through the porthole, Illiyad's well groomed mane was now blown wildly back from the wind, his legs felt wobbly from trying to keep them firmly implanted in the ground so he didn't go flying off the deck. Lou's wild unkempt mane had looked just as frazzled before so there was no change in it but his spectacles were perched oddly on his nose.

After righting his spectacles Lou proceeded back to the sick bay, he opened the door and fell back into his bed.

"What are you doing?" Illiyad asked confused, "Your leg is better."

"I know," Lou responded, "but I sleep here, I don't have any other room, neither do you for that matter, so I'm afraid your still stuck here, I mean you can come and go, you'll have to get your own food now, but this is your room. It's not like you have anything to do on this ship, least not right now, talk to an officer, as for me all my patients are gone, I've got no books to read, so I've got nothing to do," Lou said.

"Well I'm going to find something to do, see you later," Illiyad said as he exited the room and shut the door behind him."

He left the room and went back into a hallway where he began asking around where he could find an officer. After several minutes of this he decided based on what the sailors had said to find the 2nd mate who had his room near the bridge. He ascended a flight of stairs until he came to a room marked, "Lt. Elmont."

Illiyad opened the door into a wooden room a bit smaller than the sick bay. It had the same furnishings as the sick bay as well, except for one desk with a gas lamp on it, and a bookshelf. It was considered quite lavish to have your own room aboard a pegasus ship, especially a furnished one, and especially on a measley horizon class ship.

Inside the room was a white pegasus with a black mane and tail streaked with blue, he radiated an air of confidence but it was not confidence foolhardy in nature but gained from experience. He was wearing a dark blue naval uniform. It had several ribbons as well as a pad on one shoulder marking his rank, and another on the other side marked 7 to show his ship number, the _Cobalt_ had the number 7 as it's naval registration number.

He turned around and calmly asked, "have you come here for something?"

"Yes actually," Illiyad responded, "I am in need of a position aboard this ship, as a church member I am highly skilled in combat though I know little of naval tactics, or I could be your chaplain if you wish.

I'm sorry but we already have a church member as chaplain," Lt. Elmont replied, "but I'm sure your participation in combat would be much appreciated, we need everypony we can get, and I'm sure you will be a welcome addition to the boarding force."

Illiyad nodded his head in understanding and turned around to leave but before he did he turned his head and asked, "Oh by the way I don't suppose I could borrow a book from you?"

Elmont nodded and retrieved one from his bookshelf, "here you go," he said handing it to Illiyad.

Illiyad tucked it under his wing, thanked him and left. When he arrived again at the sick bay Lou asked how it went.

"Well I'm stuck here until there's a battle, so I guess I will just keep lying around here being a useless waste of space," he said grumpily. "Oh by the way I got a book for you," he said to Lou, glancing at the front cover he read out the title, Daring Do and the Sapphire Stone, hmm well it's not exactly an intelligent read but it's the best I could do," he said throwing it down on Lou's bed.

Lou's ears pricked straight up and he jumped out of bed to look at the book.

"By the gods, you got a copy of a Daring Do book!" he said in a mixture of amazement and jubilation.

"Yes, why is that so great?"

"Look at the date of publishing!" Lou said holding the book up to Illiyad's face, the date said 286 E.E.

Pony history is divided into 4 segments, B.C., before civilization is all the time before the first pony civilization ever founded, the unicorn monarchy. P.E. is the pre Equestrian era, detailing all the time after the founding of the unicorn monarchy but before the founding of Equestria. After that comes E.E. the Equestrian era, this is all the time when Equestria was a unified state from the first hearth's warming (a holiday now replaced by revolution day) and to the fall of the unicorn hierarchy.

Celestia ruled during this time, and though history is marred by myth and legend from what most historians can tell, her rule came about like this. During the year 24 E.E. Celestia and Luna came to rule Equestria. The sisters were both born with extraordinary magical ability, though throughout their lives most of this magical energy was devoted to the spell they almost constantly were casting, a complex spell to make them live longer. However what little energy they had left after this spell they used to create simple parlor trick magic, though it had little actual effect they looked astounding enough to make the ponies believe they were gods, and the Equestrian people gladly accepted them as leaders.

From then on Celestia and Luna did their best to keep up this illusion, they said they rose the sun and moon, and they claimed Luna was banished for a thousand years to the moon. In truth after Luna ordered several ponies executed, Celestia "Banished" her for 50 years to calm the peoples anger, though in reality she was simply confined to Canterlot castle. Celestia distorted the history books so that eventually by the time that generation had died, the next believed Luna had been gone for 1000 years, they put on a big show about her coming back, but it was really just a fake. They ruled for several more years until in the year 332 E.E. they finally died.

After that Twilight Sparkle founded the unicorn hierarchy at age 40 and ruled for 10 years on the unicorn council before having her term limit expire. After that Fancypants wealthy Canterlot tycoon was voted into the head council seat, and so ended the matriarchal traditions founded by Celestia and Luna.

100 years after the founding of the unicorn hierarchy or 432 E.E., the pegasi and earth ponies struck back, during massive celebrations of the 100 year anniversary of the hierarchy's founding, the military let down their guard and the slaves rebelled taking over Canterlot and soon the rest of Equestria. This ended the equestrian era and which became the A.R. or after revolution era, it was now 163 A.R.

"Amazing," Illiyad gasped, "That book is over 300 years old."

"I know!" squealed Lou, "and now I get to read it!"

Lou jumped onto his bed and immediately buried his face in the book, however after a few seconds he quickly looked up and said.

"And if your itching for something to do don't worry, we will be at Port Dawn in a few days, and then you will be able to fly."

"What are we doing in Port Dawn?" Illiyad asked.

Lou looked at him and rolled his eyes and said "What else, attacking."

**Hope you enjoyed it, please review, your reviews are what keep me going so keep reviewing and I will keep writing. I know not much happened but this was really more of a transition chapter, make sure to send me your O.C.'s. It might be a while before the next one, I'm gonna be pretty busy, but keep reviewing that way I get some good ideas from you and that helps me write it faster.**


	12. Assault on Cloudsdale

**Long wait again, I know sorry, anyway newest chapter, enjoy, review, please review, always great to know if you are still reading and to find out what you think. I'm still taking O.C.'s so make sure to submit them, enjoy.**

**12. Assault on Cloudsdale**

Cloudy was sitting at his desk pouring over some calculations, a gramophone played softly in the corner and sunlight streamed in through the windows.He made some scribbles on the paper frustrated at the problem he had run into in his calculations. He leaned back in his chair and spun it around a few times drearily examining each idea which popped into his head. Cloudy was a thinker, he spent long hours in that swivel chair just pondering things and exploring ideas. Outside his window clouds drifted lazily across the sky and the sun illuminated tiny particles of dust gently drifting in the air.

The door opened and Commander Cannon walked in, Cloudy got up and turned of the gramophone.

"We need you on the bridge," Commander Cannon said gruffly, "Its time for the attack."

Cloudy groaned and buried his face in his hooves before walking with cannon to the bridge, when they got there Cloudy looked out of the massive glass window. Cloudsdale loomed ahead in the distance, visible to Cloudy even though he and the _Thunder Strike_ were still several miles away. Cloudy had not believed his orders when he had first seen them but they were real. Back while the _Thunder Strike _had been undergoing repairs outside the town they had attacked Cloudy had been given this message from command.

"Proceed towards the outside of the Riker Mountains until Cloudsdale comes into view. Attack the floating city head on, don't worry about the fortifications, they will be taken care of. We have some ground units who will draw away troops from the city. Once you have gotten past the fortified perimeter, make your way into the center of the city and destroy everything you can. Focus on destroying military buildings, cathedrals, and government buildings. Eventually the pegasi will realize the ground troops were just a decoy, when they do get out of there as quickly as you can. This operation is not a takeover, we just want to send the message that even their greatest city is not safe from us."

Cloudy had gone over the message a million times in his head, it was a good plan, attacking Cloudsdale would make the civilian pegasi frightened and make them want a quick end to the war. Once they pressured their government to end the war the pegasi would rush to get a peace treaty, and their desperation would give the earth ponies an upper hand at the bargaining table.

As Cloudy paced the bridge an earth pony who was handling a telescope called out.

"The decoy army is almost under Cloudsdale, soon the pegasi will see them and focus on attacking them. Also a large group of pegasi is heading for the Riker Mountains, can't imagine why, but it should be good for us."

"Nice job," Cloudy called out "How long until we come within firing range from their cannons?"

"14 minutes," he called out from the telescope.

Cloudy resumed his pacing while crewmen went to the rest of the ship telling everypony to prepare for battle. Crewmen loaded the cannon with heavy shells as the defenses came closer and closer, Cloudy hoped whatever was planned to destroy them came soon. The decoy army was nearly under the city and the pegasi were scrambling their entire forces, all that was left were the defensive cannons.

They were almost there, and the cannons had spotted them, but as they turned and prepared to fire the ones right in front of the _Thunder Strike_ suddenly had the clouds under them explode and the cannons fell from the sky.

More cannons in front of them fell, whoever was firing was targeting the cloud bed and opening up a path in the cannon line for the _Thunder Strike_ to go through.

Down below the decoy army was beginning to fall back, the entirety of Cloudsdale's military force at their heels. They had not yet noticed that the _Thunder Strike_ was rapidly plowing through their defenses as cannon after cannon fell from the sky. Reports were called out from ponies hastily rushing across the bridge to each window.

"Some pegasi flying away from that cannon take them out before they can report back to the ground forces about our attack!"

"Cannon rotating towards us evade it now!"

"Turn left! Turn left! Your other left you dolt!"

"Machine gunners focus fire on right side we have some residual military forces mounting a defense!"

Cloudy's head swam with all these words flying around amidst the fire of the machine gun and the explosions happening all around them. Each time the explosions would come in bursts of two and two cannons would fall from the sky hurtling to the ground and smashing into it like meteors.

However there were more cannons around them as they pushed further through the defensive line nearing the city. Noticing the _Thunder Strike's_ cannon crew was entranced by the massive explosions around them Cloudy decided to pitch into the destruction of Cloudsdale's defenses and use the _Thunder Strike's_ cannon to aid in their destruction. Running up to the cannon he pushed against it with his entire body and rotated it until it faced a cannon directly ahead of him. One of the crewmen tried to help and pushed a shell into the ammo slot. Cloudy ran over to the firing lever and pulled it down with his mouth. The cannon let off a blast, recoiled back and a second later one of Cloudsdale's defensive cannon's exploded in flame. Cloudy buck kicked the other crewmen who hadn't loaded the cannon on account of negligence.

Finally the cannon line ended, behind the _Thunder Strike_ a string of open cloudless sky ran through the defensive perimeter with a few smoking cannon husks as well.

"That will take a while to rebuild, and a lot of bits," Cloudy said smiling slightly.

They were in the civilian area of Cloudsdale, pegasi flying through the streets stopped and gazed in awe as the _Thunder Strike_ moved through Cloudsdale. The cannon crew managed to do their jobs finally and turned the cannon, loaded it, and then fired it into the side of a building which crumbled in a heap of bricks. The masses of ponies flew away in terror as the Thunder Strike proceeded to fly through the streets destroying the brick victorian buildings. A cannon shell careened through a large building whose walls exploded in a mass of bricks and were set on fire. Another smashed into the street creating a crater of asphalt and destroying the cloud bed exposing open sky beneath it. They passed next to a massive marble cathedral emblazoned with the winged trident. Cannon shells smashed into its spires and they crumbled down upon the roof caving it in.

Meanwhile Commander Cannon was ordering the machine gunners to fire on civilians fleeing the scene. Cloudy gave no such orders, but did not tell them to stop, instilling terror was their job and it was working. So much is made up in people's minds entire civilizations can crumble because of what people think.

Goods can be purchased with things of no value, as long as they have value in peoples mind. Economies can crumble because people think it will, something can have power even if it isn't real as long as it's in peoples minds. Psychological facades can be built up and be the foundation for great things, or they can tear them down. They were tearing up people's idea of safety, and by being afraid, they allow their enemies to win.

Suddenly a report was called out from nopony other than Ensign Dragonhide, the only pony on this ship who Cloudy even considered a decent pony.

"Sir, the pegasus forces have figured out our ruse, they're headed this way."

Cloudy almost sighed in relief, running away was something he could do with a clear conscience.

"Okay, we've done our job lets get ourselves the hell out of here."

Cloudy said pointing with his hoof towards the defensive line, they couldn't go back the way they came with the pegasus defense forces hot on their tails so they would have to go out a way where the cannons hadn't been cleared while counting on their cannon support.

They moved through the streets quickly diverting more power to the propellers so that they could move as fast as possible. They quickly reached the defensive line and fortunately a few cannons exploded in their midst. They proceeded through in the same manner as before until suddenly they found themselves surrounded on both sides by cannons and with no path through the hard compacted clouds.

"We better get some of that cannon support right now," Cloudy remarked grimacing, but none came after a few seconds of being surrounded the canon crew started to turn the cannon towards the pegasus defenses.

Cloudy motioned for them to stop, he knew what was going on, their cannon support was gone and they were surrounded on all sides by at least 8 cannons. If they blew up one, the other 7 would obliterate them, even the thick basalt fibers could not deflect the many shots at once from these heavy cannons.

"Nobody move," Cloudy ordered, "we surrender," he said under his breath.

After a few minutes the pegasus army caught up with them and surrounded them. Two unarmed pegasi flew down to the massive window in the bridge and motioned for them to follow. Cloudy obeyed, and ordered that the crew follow the pegasi, they led them across the defensive line next to a building which cloudy guessed to be a barracks. There was a clearing of clouds next to it and the pegasi motioned for the _Thunder Strike_ to land on it. They slowed down the vacuum turbines and allowed air to flood the balloon so the dirigible could land, these clouds were not fluffy, they were hard as concrete and the airship made a small thud as it landed.

Cloudy walked out of the bridge down the hallway ordering everypony to surrender as he went along. He opened the large hatch to discover hundreds of battle ready pegasi in the clearing there was one right in front of the hatch who spoke to him.

"You are too surrender, your men will come with ours and you will relinquish control of your infernal flying machine to the church, you have 5 minutes to get everypony aboard your ship out into this clearing before we start firing."

"Alright," Cloudy respond nonchalantly before going back inside and yelling out loud, "Get out here quickly, do whatever they say, put up no resistance, everything will be okay."

A mass of ponies came out of crew rooms, machine gun stations, and boiler rooms to surrender. However as his crew moved outside he took advantage of the crowd to discreetly pick out eight ponies and order them to quickly get to the bridge.

When they got to the bridge he told them his plan in a hushed whisper, the eight ponies all nodded and rushed off to fulfill their part of the plan.

After 5 minutes everypony was outside and they were all escorted to a large group of tents surrounded by barbed wire, nearby was the barracks. Guards were positioned on some hastily erected wooden guard towers surrounding the barbed wire.

The crew of the Thunder Strike were led inside this encampment and all showed into tents. Cloudy was led into one, there was nothing in it, just the earth below him and the canvas tent above him, the pegasi were not well prepared for prisoners of war.

Cloudy mentally prepared himself for imprisonment by pacing around his tent getting more comfortable with it, and by thinking about uplifting music so as to not have his sorrow crash down all at once and cause him to have a mental collapse. This was short lived however as two pegasi came into his tent demanding that he follow them. Outside the rest of his crew were being shown to their tents, 4 to a tent, but Cloudy had been given a private one, probably to disassociate him with his crew in their time of need.

The two pegasi led him to a flying chariot, the chariot was covered by a small canvas top and was being pulled by two large angry looking pegasi. He and the two guards entered the chariot giving no explanation for where they were going.

The chariot took off into the sky, it was a thrilling feeling, flying openly, were it not for the fact that he was captive he would have laughed out loud in pure ecstasy at the joyful rush of air.

His joy was short lived however when they left the defensive line and entered the city. Civilian pegasi flew right next to him, not the normal traffic however, it looked as if the entire city had come out to fly beside him and glare at him. Some pegasi had haggard looks as if they had just lost family, others were covered in dust and ash, those ones glared at him the most, they had been where he had attacked.

One pegasus flew right up to the chariot and flying kicked Cloudy straight in the jaw. He collapsed on the chariot floor blood leaking from his mouth, he was vaguely aware of one of his captors beating up the pony who had attacked him, at least his captors wanted him alive. He stood up with no help from the guards who had expressions of complete neutrality on their faces, the polar opposite of the expression of the civilian pegasi next to them. They looked ready to riot, each one had the expression of somepony who wanted to smash his skull in. The chariot ponies saw this and sped up allowing them to fly ahead of the crowd.

Soon they reached their destination, a massive cathedral, one of the ones he had not attacked, Cloudsdale was large and he had only attacked a small portion of it. The guard ponies went in through a side door in order to avoid the massive congregation. Soon he was led into the back hallway of the church, this place was not as grand, it was a collection of offices belonging to church officials. Finally Cloudy worked up the courage to ask the guards something.

"Where are you taking me?"

Cloudy asked nervously, the guards made no response until they came to the door at the very back of the hallway, the door was large so the office must be as well, Cloudy assumed, finally a guard answered his question.

"Executor Herodotus of the holy church wishes to speak with you."

**There we go latest chapter, sorry it was a little short and that it took for ever, I have been very busy but not anymore, now I have plenty of time for writing. Please review, share your O.C.s with me, thanks.**


	13. Blending in with Society

**Newest chapter, review, share, you know the drill, hope you enjoy, also if anyone has an idea about when the best time is to post a story so that people read it, it would be much appreciated (make sure to include what time zone that time is for.) There are suggestive themes in this chapter, nothing serious this is not and never will be a clopfic but it is mentioned briefly.**

**13. Blending in With Society**

Sartos awoke suddenly from his latest night terror involving being burned alive as a tidal wave of needles crashed down on him. After this he preceded to jump off the bed onto his bedside drawer and immediately started breaking all of the drawers and turning it into wood splinters. He regained his sensibilities and stood over his former dresser drawer now turned to kindling. He sighed and sat down on his bed, in order to help himself recover from these terrors he decided to use a new method recommended to him by a psychologist in place of old nursery rhymes. He tried to distract his brain by reciting a complex sentence very quickly.

"My mind is made of gears and all are clicking, clocking, ticking, tocking, moving inside my head, awake and in bed, making my imagination a conflagration of thoughts and dreams and everything that's dark and evil is a walled up and balled up inside my brain and though I disdain every single thing that I encounter in my sleep I still keep on seeing them day after day and but there is no way to have them stay away but they are merely cogs and gears dislodged and twisted disrupting all my dreams inside my clicking, clocking, ticking, tocking, mind."

Sartos recited this several times before leaving his room into the main area. He was staying in the most expensive room of the classiest hotel in ponyville, Carth had insisted that since the bank provided all their money that they spend as much of it as they want. So the moment they stepped off the train Carth spent as much money as possible including the best hotel room in ponyville, Sartos told him to stay inconspicuous but he did not listen.

Their hotel was made up of a private room for each of them, complete with their own luxury bathrooms. These were connected to a large central living space complete with couches, a fireplace, several expensive paintings and tapestries, and a grandfather clock. There was even a bell which would call for food to be brought up from the kitchens below via dumbwaiter.

Carth was leaning back on a couch looking pleased with himself while listening to a gramophone he bought, or rather the PIET bank account bought, play a song while wearing a very expensive tuxedo complete with a top hat, which PIET had also bought.

"Hey there you are, I rung for breakfast it will be here any moment, are you all right, it sounded it like you were mutilating a wardrobe in there?"

Sartos did not respond but went back into his room and emerged with his kindling which he threw onto the fireplace.

"That's a yes then," Carth responded right as the dumbwaiter lifted the food right up to them.

" Toast with jam, boiled potatoes and tomatoes, alfalfa, and some coffee," Carth said cheerfully as he placed their breakfast on a glass table between two couches opposite each other.

"I think we need to decide on a course of action," Sartos said sitting on the couch opposite Carth and taking a piece of toast in his hoof.

"But we've only been here a day, there are so many sights to see, and I've never been to an earth pony city, lets act like earth ponies, blend in with their society, have some fun," Carth responded.

'We are working," Sartos growled at him, "we're here to gather intelligence on this commander were looking for, we need to find inroads to where he is, I think that we should try to find people who know him, soldiers or family members would be a good idea."

"Brilliant," Carth responded through a sip of coffee, "you take the soldiers I'll look for family members."

"That's a bad idea, you should stick with me, you're not a trained spy, you should see how I do it, try and get in what little training I can give you, Sartos replied."

"It's a great plan," Carth responded, "You are trained for interrogations so you can take the military people, but I have more charm, so I will get friendly with his family."

"Fine, but be careful," Sartos responded gruffly, he got up from the table carrying his coffee and walking over to the window. From the large window in their room he could see the streets of ponyville. Carriages drawn by large ponies who worked for almost nothing a day crowded the streets among soot covered pedestrians. Smoke clouded the sky but below the air was breathable enough for those who walked among it, but for the proletariat who worked in the factories among the heavy smog they coughed constantly. The rich sat in carriages wearing fancy clothes and talking in heavily accented voices enjoying their class born privileges.

But the working pony wore overalls or a factory harness, they welded bolts on, in assembly lines to make walkers or built large brick houses for the wealthy elite. But they all lived on, barely, their families managed to be fed, yet their faces were contorted into scowls, they looked ready to revolt. The scientists worked desperately to find technological ways to change things, but they don't exist because what the earth ponies needed was social change. However the scientists who ran their nation knew nothing of this, and were blindly fooled by the elite who claimed to know the proper non scientific solutions but really were just helping themselves. So it was that the smartest ponies in Equestria were fooled by the elite because of their ignorance.

Sartos retreated from the window and out the door cutting breakfast short, for he had work to do. For several days he went around to every military hangout, bars, military fight rings, all of them, and found nothing, those who were under command of the commander, knew little about anything other than the orders he gave them. They were blind followers, they did what they were told, nothing more, Sartos had practically resigned himself to not being able to find the commander's whereabouts until one day. He was coming back from the hotel when he stopped outside his door, there was banging coming from inside and the door was locked.

"Carth!" Sartos yelled from outside, but there was no answer, louder then "CARTH!" Still no answer.

"That's it I'm coming in!"

He yelled and was about to kick down the door when Carth's voice suddenly called from inside, "NO, NO, NO, JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE!"

Sartos waited outside until Carth stepped outside and quickly shut the door behind him. He was blushing furiously and had his clothes pulled loosely around him, his ears were down on his head in embarrassment.

"Are you bucking kidding me?" Sartos asked calmly.

"hehe… heh…no…" Carth responded akwardly chuckling.

Sartos exploded, "WE ARE WORKING! YOU CAN DO WHATEVER THE BUCK YOU WANT BACK IN CLOUDSDALE BUT WE ARE WORKING RIGHT NOW!"

"Quiet everypony will hear you," Carth said whispering.

Sartos switched to an angry whisper, "You are potentially compromising our situation with this, I mean, seriously, is your impulse control that bad?"

"Well you didn't think I would do this without a reason did you," Carth said fakely sounding hurt, "that mare in there is the wife of the commander we're searching for."

"Well buck searching for him, he's going to come here and kill us," Sartos said nervously putting his hoof on his forehead.

"Actually he's out of town right now."

"Really, what else have you learned?" Sartos inquired.

"That earth pony mares are alright," he said jokingly elbowing Sartos.

"About the commander!" He whispered furiously.

"Well apparently I'm better in bed than him," he responded grinning.

"You know what I mean," Sartos responded exasperatedly.

"Nothing else, but she wants to have dinner with me at her place while her husband is away, normally I don't seek complicated relationships for married mares but I'll make an exception."  
>"That's great, listen here's what you have do, now that we know where she lives ask her for a key, give it to me, when you go over there distract her and I will sneak in the back door and search for information regarding the commander."<p>

"Okay great," Carth responded.

"How long has this been going on?" Sartos asked.

"Only a day or two, I looked for references at the telegraph station, fortunately she had a private telegraph so I traced it from there, I found her, apparently she has a loveless marriage, so I took my in," Carth responded.

"Damn, you'd make a good spy," Sartos responded.

"Told ya', now if you'll excuse me I have unfinished business," Carth said trotting back into the hotel room. Sartos occupied himself by going downstairs to a cafe and studied earth pony society, Sartos fancied himself a bit of an equipologist, it was what he had wanted to be before PIET found him

(Authors note: Equipologist is word play of anthropologist, because ponies are equines, if you don't know this an anthropologist studies cultural behavior and human behavior.)

A day later Sartos followed Carth to the Commander's mansion, with him he had a key and Carth had a small batch of flowers and was wearing his tuxedo. Through the window he saw the mare who was the commander's wife, she had a coat a bright mix of red gold and orange, but her mane was a mix of purple, blue, and green all forming a shimmering rainbow across her body. They stopped outside the front door, Carth bumped him on the shoulder, told him good luck and went inside.

Sartos waited a few minutes before sneaking around to the mansions backyard, it was connected to the front by a small path with an unused unlatched wooden gate. Sartos arrived into a small backyard, all city yards were small even those of the elite. He soon found a large glass backdoor which he quietly unlocked with the key and tiptoed inside going up a set of stairs near him. On the second floor he found a study, it was lined with books and had a nice desk piled with papers. Sartos stepped inside and was about to browse through them before he was hit very hard on the back of the head.

He fell down on the floor and turned around, the rainbow mare was standing over him with a lamp which had been on the desk.

"You prismatic bitch!"

He yelled before she smashed his face with the lamp and he fell unconscious.

Carth was sitting downstairs looking at a delicious meal he was about to eat before the commander's wife came running down the stairs yelling and crying.

"There's a strange pony upstairs, I went up to put on makeup and he was in the study, breaking and entering, like a thief, he called me a prismatic bitch, I knocked him unconscious with a lamp, I'm so scared."

Carth hugged her and whispered softly, "Its okay, he unconscious now, he cant hurt you, here cry into this," he took out a handkerchief from his saddlebag and she wiped her face with it.

"Thank you, I feel really tired all of a sudden," she sat down on a chair.

"I can only imagine, after such an ordeal," Carth said lovingly, "You go to bed and get some rest and I will get the police, but before you go to bed one question."

"What?" the mare asked snifling.

"Did that handkerchief smell like chloroform to you?"

She fainted on the ground and Carth picked her sleeping form and took her upstairs and tucked her into bed laughing at his own joke. He then went over to the study and searched it for hours until he came upon what he was looking for. Then he picked up Sartos's body and dragged it outside, he hired a carriage and claimed Sartos had drank to much, they were taken back to the hotel and Carth left Sartos on the living room floor before going to bed.

Sartos woke up lying on the floor with his head throbbing from the blows, he had slept so soundly he had not had any night terrors and woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed despite his pounding head and bloody. The sun shone down on his face and the carpet beneath him was surprisingly soft and comfortable, he stretched out like a cat and lay there in the sunlight.

"Morning," Carth said nonchalantly passing him by on the floor while stirring some coffee, he sat down on the couch and began to drink it.

"What the buck happened?" Sartos asked groggily.

"You broke into the commander's house, tried to steel some papers, called his wife a colorful insult, get it colorful, cause you called her a prismatic bitch, anyway she knocked you unconscious, so I chloroformed her, she's probably waking up much the same way you are right now."

"Right, right I remember," Sartos replied.

"I got the papers we need," Carth said cheerfully throwing down a piece of paper on the floor.

It was a letter reading as follows.

"Dear Commander Piston, I need you to take over as head of walker manufacturing and distribution for Manehattan, normally this is my position but we need experienced officers at the front so you are replacing me, I cant give you the details of our walkers through the mail, its not secure enough, everything you need to know for walker production and movements is in my office at the Manehattan walker armory, administrative section room 174, come as soon as you can. Sincerely Colonel Iron Hoof."

Sartos stood up, "we have a destination, the commander will have gotten there and taken over by now but he probably has files detailing manufacturing and movment, which we can find in his office, lets get headed to Manehattan."

"Aww but we've only been here a few days, cant we at least see the town hall, its almost 300 years old," Carth whined.

Sartos ignored him and started packing what little he had back into his backpack and then cleaned his face of dried blood. He threw his saddle bags over his back and saw Carth struggling to fit his gramophone into his bag which was bursting with everything he had bought. He gave up on the gramophone and walked out the door with Sartos.

"Can we get some breakfast before we leave, how does waffles sound to you," Carth asked.

Sartos rolled his eyes, "focus Carth, stay focused."

**Hope you enjoyed it, review, share, all that good stuff, thanks for reading,, submit your O.C.s, I'm running out of names and descriptions for background ponies.**


	14. Magic

**Newest chapter, I know I said this one would come earlier but I was wrong I know its been a really long wait and I'm sorry. Anyway please review, I'm not even sure if some of my old reviewers are still reading the story so please review if you still are. This chapter details the entire world of the story so I'm sorry I couldn't include a map, if it's not detailed enough just imagine, enjoy the newest chapter, and for that matter the newest main character. Also when writing this chapter my computer glitched and started putting lines in random places that I couldn't erase, ignore any lines you see.**

**14. Magic**

Magic, while there is much misconception and pseudo-science surrounding the idea of magic here is the scientific fact. (Authors note: only as far as this story is concerned, magic isn't scientific or real for that matter) Magic is simply a form of energy, however magical energy can be directly manipulated in its pure form. When you go by train you are manipulating energy in a sense, the movement of pistons is driving wheels, the wheels move the train which moves you from point A to point B. However this energy is manipulated through machinery, expanding steam moves the pistons, the pistons are attached to the wheels so they move etc. However when magical energy is being used the magical user can directly manipulate the energy. Lets say a train was being run by magical energy, the magic would go directly into making the wheels spin, it would push the wheels seemingly from nowhere without needing the expansion of steam as energy to drive pistons which rotate the wheels.

This energy can be manipulated in fine ways, it can act as a force on objects out of nowhere, commonly known as telekinesis, it can heat up areas until they burn, pyrokinesis, it can form barriers, after all what is a barrier but a force acting on an object until it stops? Magical energy can even break down atomic structures and reassemble them in entirely different areas, this is known as teleportation.

Magical energy can only be manipulated by certain magical creatures, these creatures have the ability to take their potential energy and transfer it into magical energy, then they can take that magical energy and manipulate in different ways just like we might use our energy to turn a crank. This is very tiring for the magical creatures since they are of course using energy, and just like a muscle their magical ability gets stronger the more it is used.

In Equestria (authors note: Equestria is both the earth pony and pegasus nation, sort of like how Ireland is still part of Great Brittan even though it is a separate nation) however magic was gone, the unicorns were gone and any creatures with a shred of magic had been killed of hundreds of years ago. However magic still was alive in the rest of the world, in fact one such magical creature was sitting at his desk spinning a globe observing its continents and seas and nations. Below the earth pony nation the continent has a large dessert inhabited by the zebras who have druids and witch doctors who practice strange voodoo rituals involving magic. Below that a race of strange creatures with gills and lungs live in a small collection of landmasses known as the Starfall islands. East of Equestria the changlings live in a collection of swamps and forests. North of Equestria is the barren north, a small strip of iced over land which forms into a curving claw as the ice gets thicker and the aurora becomes visible. West of Equestria lies the viceroy sea and beyond that a new continent, a large dessert kingdom lies across the sea, this land is home to the haalfjimak. A race of bipedal creatures with hands and fingers, the haalfjimak are like standing trunk less elephants. They have rough gray skin and across their face a rough patch of hardened skin extends from their forehead forming a triangular point just above the top of their mouth and partially covers their large yellow eyes; they are only 5 to 6 feet tall. North of this dessert lies the griffon kingdoms, a mountainous land home to the griffons, west of them and the haalfjimak and across a spine of mountains lies a small sea which soon gives way to the land of minotaurs a small kingdom situated on a peninsula barely attached to a greater landmass. The minotaurs have a vital position however because it makes it a vital trade passage between the land of skerla and the haalfjimak, the skerla are a race of tall furred rodents, much like large bipedal weasels, they are a trading and seafaring nation who trades with the haalfjimak as well as a race further south of them but on the same continent, the nersotath. They are a race much like humans, they are small furless bipedal creatures, they are capable of great magic but do not often use it, one of the few times they use it is when facing dragon attacks. The last dragons live on a mountainous peninsula extending out from the southern end of the land of the nersotath. West of that lies a great sea with no islands for miles, but finally it comes to and end at the border of the changling lands.

Yet in this whole world there was no land the unicorns called their own, after they had been driven out of Equestria they had nowhere to go, some said that far south there were unexplored lands but no one believed them, it is a well accepted fact that the only lands in the southern hemisphere were the parts of the zebra kingdoms, the Starfall Islands, the land of the nersotath and some lands belonging to the skerla. So they simply sailed west across the viceroy sea and wound up at the shores of haalfjimak territory, they sailed right into their coastal capitol city of Kimagil, and fortunately for them they were welcomed with open arms by the haalfjimak. The haalfjimak government allowed the refugees to stay inside the city, it had worked out well for both sides, the unicorns had a place to live and the haalfjimak had a race of magical creatures in their nation. But even after hundereds of years the unicorns secretly longed for their homeland even though now no unicorn was left alive who had set foot on it

(Author's note: I know that was a bit disconnected but I wanted to include the world so you have a better idea of the world this story takes place in.)

Lt. Archistandobia-karinstadak or Lt. Arch for short stopped spinning his globe and peered out his window, the unicorns had adopted long names from the haalfjimak as well as many other cultural norms. Looking out the window, Arch could see the docks, several large ships were docked there and crates were being magically levitated onto them. Several magic powered machines were pushing larger loads and steam powered cranes were moving cargo containers off ships. Embroidered on the sides of the magical machines were the commonplace intertwined golden FF, Flim Flam Industries had been producing magical machinery for hundreds of years. Meanwhile the steam machines all had various manufacturing marks, the haalfjimak used steam power, as opposed to the unicorns who used magical powered machines instead. This odd mix managed to work together with steam machines performing most heavy tasks but magic ones performing more delicate ones. The docks were a melting pot of different peoples, unicorns and haaljimak worked together on the docks while skerla traders tried to sell their goods to traveling minotaurs and the occasional nersotath. Arch watched them all going about their daily business before turning back to his magic, Arch was a 3d level magician, unicorns had 6 magical ratings. 6 is for ones with "magical deformities," almost no magical ability, 5th for average magical users, 4th for those with great magical power but poor knowledge of spells or experience, 3d for those with some knowledge and experience as well as power, 2nd for both power and experience, 1st for anomalously powerful magicians. Most knowledge of spells was lost when the unicorns were driven from Equestria, now the average unicorn knows only two uses for magic, levitation, and harnessing magic it in it's raw form, as pure energy expended as force. 3d level magicians know spells greater than those two and 2nd level ones know maybe 7-10 and are involved in leading society and researching new magical spells rediscovering hundreds of years of lost magical knowledge.

Arch was learning a knew spell at this very moment, he was desperately concentrating on the floor 2 feet away from him, he tried imagining himself standing there, but it didn't work he only got a faint glow around his horn, he tried again with no success. He was getting tired, he only had one more try in him, but this time he did something different. Instead of imagining himself there he imagined himself looking from that point of view. Looking back at his desk and his chair, at the wooden wall which was behind him and the mahogany floor beneath it. Suddenly he wasn't imagining it, he was standing right there, he had teleported. He slumped onto the floor from exhaustion but smiled as he did it, four spells, he knew four spells! It was two more than most unicorns, he could teleport and perform pyrokinesis as well as use telekinesis and magical blasts of energy. After lying there for a moment he got to his hooves and walked out of the room. His was a room in the Office of Military Magical Personnel, while all in the unicorn military were technically magical it is well understood that the OMMP is the barracks for 3d level magical users and above.

He walked out of his office and into the crowded streets filled with haalfjimak and unicorns alike, it was an odd society, two very different races of creature with different technologies managing to live together in one city.

In the streets there were colorful market stalls selling all manner of goods, there were throngs of creatures and large steam and magic powered walkers walking on the roads. The air was hot and oppressive as the sun beat down upon the city, a dessert city along the coast more haalfjimak lived there than in the rest of their desert nation.

Arch walked through the crowds until he came to his favorite bar, it was a run down wooden building, a sign hung above it saying 'the hoof and claw.' He pushed open the door and felt the coolness hit him as he walked into the dark shaded bar. Small slits of sunlight broke through the windows and a smoky musty air filled the room. Arch walked up to the bar and a unicorn bartender quickly mixed him a drink. He came there often and the bartender knew exaactley what he wanted. The room was filled with tables sat at both by unicorns and haalfjimak, even a few skerla.

Suddenly a group of haalfjimak walked in through the door, Arch stared into his drink as one walked over to the bar and sat down next to him. Arch looked up at the haalfjimak, his rough gray skin bore several scars and his small vestigial tusks were chipped and battered. His hardened, armor like, triangular sheet of skin that extended from his forehead covering his nose and forming a point at the top of his mouth did little to hide his glare. He was wearing a red turban over his head and his brown clothes were caked with dirt contrasting Arch's well pressed dull green uniform. Arch was a white unicorn with a blue mane, he had always been destined it seemed for a military career, always a fighter, as well as a gambler, cheater, drinker, not that he was wild or crazy. He just didn't seem to care about anything too much, except for magic. For all his life he had cared about magic more than anything else, he had grown up an orphan, and had lived in an orphanage for most of his life. However in this orphanage he was the only unicorn. Everyone he knew was a haalfjimak, and because of this he thought of magic differently. Most unicorns just accepted it as a normal part of life, but being the only one who possessed it for most of his childhood, Arch thought of it as an incredible blessing. As he grew older and met more unicorns he understood that it was normal for them, but the impression it had made on him from childhood never went away. His one real goal in life was to become the best magician he could be, the only first class one in centuries.

The haalfjimak said nothing for several minutes he appeared to be waiting for Arch to speak first but eventually he became annoyed.

He spoke in his deep gruff voice, "Do you know why I'm here?"

"I owe you precisely 3,250 karche and a gold watch," Arch responded, karche was the haalfjimak currency.

"Well at least you remember your debts, do you have it."

"I sold the gold to watch to get 3,250 karche," Arch said glancing away.

"Can I have that then?"

Suddenly Arch dived away of his barstool and behind a table which he promptly flipped over and from behind it shouted, "I LIED!" before expelling several blasts of magical energy from his horn in their direction. One haaalfjimak was hit by it and was sent carrening into the back wall by the blast. The rest who had come into the bar flipped over tables themselves and pulled out their pistols. The haalfjimak had hands and clawed fingers so their pistols resembled human ones, seeing as unicorns use telekinesis they adopted the design, though rarely used them favoring magic.

There were still 4 other haalfjimak who were ducked behind tables wildly shooting bullets out by poking their hands over the side of their cover. The rest of the bar's patron's had left with the exception of the bartender who levitated a shotgun out from under the counter.

He shot it off randomly at both the haalfjimak and Arch while yelling "GET THE BUCK OUT OF MY BAR!"

The haalfjimak shot a few bullets at the bartender who quickly lost his courage and ducked behind the bar his hooves over his head. Arch peaked his head over the table and began concentrating on one of the flipped over tables that a haalfjimak was now crouched behind, the table began to smoke and then it exploded into flame. The haalfjimak behind it ran out from is cover flailing and screaming into the open and Arch quickly dispatched him with an explosion of energy from his horn aimed at him. The other 3 shot at Arch who ducked behind the table, several bullets penetrated the wood near Arch and tiny streams of dust illuminated in sunlight showed through them.

Arch peaked around the side of the table and saw another haalfjimak with his gun poking over the top of the table. Arch concentrated and suddenly an aura formed around the pistol, he yanked it towards him but the haalfjimak held on. He was pulled over his cover and straight across the floor before smacking head first into the other side of Arch's table. Arch laid down on his back and kicked his table several times with both his hind legs. Each kick knocked the table once more into the haalfjimak's head until he was unconscious. There were still 2 haalfjimak firing at him though and Arch peaked his horn over the table and let off a few random magical blasts forcing the haalfjimak to duck behind their cover.

Arch was getting tired however, the combination of magic he was using now as well as the stress from teleporting earlier was making him ready to faint. The remaining haalfjimak got up from their cover and started to walk towards him gun drawn ready for him if he left cover. Arch was too tired to use anymore magic, and if he got up they would shoot him dead. They were coming closer and closer, he was crouched, his back lying against the table, a few more seconds and they would be above him, he looked through the bullet holes in the table, they were almost there. Suddenly something massive smashed into the two haalfjimak knocking them down to the floor. Arch cautiously looked up from the table another haalfjimak was standing over those two beating one to death, the other tried to get up but he quickly pulled a pistol out of it's holster and shot him.

When he was finished with the beating the haalfjimak got up and looked at Arch ducked behind the table. Arch recognized him instantly, Sarkhastada-marinstiwa (long desert names) or Sarkh for short, his long-standing friend, ever since the orphanage. They had grown up together stealing fruit from vendors and gambling with the street urchins, they were both in their separate militaries, and they were both excellent fighters.

Sarkh righted a table pulled up 2 chairs and motioned for Arch to come sit down in one of them. Arch did so and Sarkh called to the bartender who was still cowering,

"Bring us two gins."

As the bartender did so neither of them said a word, Arch's pride was hurt, he hadn't been able to fend them of himself, but he swallowed his pride and spoke.

"Thanks."

Sarkh laughed with his deep throaty voice, "bout time for you to say so, I saved your life, hell it's pure luck that I came here when I did, I didn't even know you were at this bar."

"Sorry I should've been able to fend for myself," Arch said his ears down from embarrassment, but suddenly they shot up.

"I learned a new spell! That's why I couldn't fend for myself, I was tired from learning it, I can teleport now Sarkh, just a few feet but I can do it."

"Neat, lets see, so now you can teleport, use telekinesis, magical blasts, and teleportation, nice job."

"Thanks," Arch responded, "I tell you though right now I could use a break from magic, I am tired as buck."

"You should be more careful when you have debt collectors trying to do you in."

"How did you know they were debt collectors?"

Sarkh laughed and slapped Arch on the back, "With you, what else could it be? Ahahaha."

Suddenly the door of the bar creaked open and sunlight poured in, standing in the doorway was a cream colored unicorn with a bright red mane wearing an officer's uniform of the OMMP. It was Major Tazerval-maleshinikwa, Arch's commanding officer, he walked into the room silently surveying the destruction.

Arch quickly stood up straight, and spoke, "Hello Major Taz, are you here to see me?"

"What you think I live to give you orders? I'm here to get a drink lieutenant," Taz responded, "however, while I'm here I might as well give the news, we are leaving tomorrow, you are coming with us to Equestria, you will board a ship designated to you later and it will take you to Equestria, you will be detailed on your exact mission once onboard."

This came as no shock to Arch, he knew the invasion was coming, and he knew nearly all of the military would be present especially experienced magical users.

Taz walked over to the bar and sat down, he ordered a drink and the bartender began pouring him it, as soon as the drink was ready Taz threw some karche down and left levitating his drink above him, after Taz had left Sarkh spoke again.

"So what's this I hear about Equestria,?" He said gruffly and inquisitively, his eyes prying into Arch trying to extract the answer.

"An invasion," Arch responded without hesitation, "it's finally time, we are taking back Equestria after over a hundred years, tomorrow you wont be seeing any military unicorns in town."

"I guess those debt collectors are bucked over than, well good luck, stay alive, and if you succeed maybe I will take a little vacation to Equestria, see how you are doing."

"I'd like that," Arch responded half smiling, "well better hit the hay, I'm worn out from all that magic and I have a big day tomorrow."

Arch got up and started to leave, as he left Sarkh called after him "good luck Arch, I don't know when I will see you again but fate will find a way." Arch walked through the crowded streets, the sun was setting, and soon the gas lamps in the street would be alight, illuminating the city brighter than the moon ever could.

Arch woke up the next morning, he jumped out of his bed still wearing a nightgown and walked into his office. Everything was as it had been the day before, the desk, the globe, the mahogany floors, he wondered if he would ever see it again, if he would ever return. The military keep his stuff in a vault, if he ever came back they would return it to him, but he didn't know if he would ever see Kimagil again.

Looking out the window he saw the entire unicorn war fleet docked at the harbor. It was a magnificent sight, the ships had rows large curving white domes making up the hull and on the deck more of these domes stretched up and curved down. It was as if a fleet of swans had sailed into harbor, each feather one of the glorious shining domes curved all along the ship. Massive guns adorned these domes, some unleashed long blasts of magic, created by several unicorns channeling their magical energy through there at once, others used gunpowder and fired huge shells. Inside the domes one could see the operators of the guns, several ponies to push it in the proper direction with their magic and load it if it fired shells, and another to aim.

Inside the tallest dome was the bridge, however on the bridge there was nothing but one pony, the captain, and a large window. The captain was not just a commander, he was also a magician well versed in the fine magic of sound manipulation. Sound manipulation is the use of magical energy to change sound waves, like making a command louder so it carries to the entire ship, or controlling the sound waves so they go from the bridge all the way to the other side of the ship but still sound as if the captain was speaking right in your ear.

Magical war machines were being loaded onto the ships, their golden intertwined FF's glistening in the sunlight, bearing the mark of their manufacturer like a coat of arms. Long lines of unicorns in uniform were marching up onto the decks, while cranes lifted crates of ammo and artillery onto the ships. Everything needed for an invasion was there; it was truly happening they were retaking their homeland.

Arch went back into his room and dressed in his uniform, he then took a small suitcase and packed away several spare uniforms and nightgowns, he took no weapons, his weapon was his magic. He packed a second suitcase with several things that he wanted put in his military vault, he kept his gold watch though, he would never sell it nor leave it, although it was already promised to many people as a gambling debt.

He left his room closing the door sorrowfully behind him, everything had been cleaned from his desk, which had mostly been papers on magical discoveries, no invasion would stop him from working on his magic. He went down stairs and dropped of his bag of things he wanted to keep in the vault off with a young soldier who had a sign saying he took bags to the vault. Arch then left the building and went to the docks, there was not complicated military procedure, but any military unicorn assigned to the invasion not on one of the designated ships by the time they left would be imprisoned. He walked to the docks, there were no haalfjimak or skerla there, the haalfjimak government had kindly agreed with the unicorn one to close the docks down for non military personnel that day. Arch walked over to a line of military personal outside the docks, there was a line at each entrance to the harbor and those split off into several more lines leading to the ships.

After a long wait Arch came to the front, where 3 military ponies were standing each levitating clipboards in front of them, the clipboards had so many papers on them that the clip could barely fit it. Each pony had a sign in front of them one said A-H another said I-Q and the third said R-Z, Arch walked over to the pony next to an A-H sign.

Without looking up the pony asked him "name?"

" Lt. Archistandobia-karinstadak," Arch responded.

"Mmmhmm," the pony mumbled as he flipped through the massive pages on the clipboard, "ah here you are, you are on the _Aurora, _Its that way," he said pointing to one of the lines off to the left.

Arch left that line and filed into the other, after another hour of waiting he was finally onboard. Suddenly when on the ship he felt the weirdest thing happen to him, out of nowhere a voice whispered, " your residence will be in room 37b."

A sailor noticing the bewildered expression on Arch's face laughed, when he was done laughing he spoke "you'll get used to it after a while, the captain gives everyone orders personally, he is an incredible magician." Arch thought to himself that he must learn that spell and walked around following signs to section 37. Most ships docked were transports and though almost weaponless they carried huge amounts of ponies and equipment. However even the fighting ships like the _Aurora_ had been outfitted with extra quarters and were transports as well as fighters. Arch navigated to room B and opened the door, inside there were 7 other ponies lying in beds, who got up and stared at him.

"Oh my bad, I must have gotten the wrong room," Arch said.

"No you're correct," one pony replied instantly, "you're a lieutenant right, so are we, apparently rooms are much smaller on ships, be lucky you aren't one of the normal soldiers, they have over 50 crammed into one room, and they don't get pillows."

Arch walked into the room, the sign clearly said 37B, they were right, the room was quite spartan. There was one small desk with a lamp and eight beds with one pillow and a small green sheet with a tiny mattress, pipes ran all along the walls, it looked like a former cooling room hastily converted into quarters. Arch decided to leave to rooms, back out into the corridor, it was odd how the ship could be so enigmatic and glorious on the outside like typical unicorn architecture but inside the domes it was gray and mechanical. He decided to go back outside into the beauty of the white domes and the polished deck. Outside it was still crowded with ponies being led onto the ship and sailors giving occasional directional advice as ponies searched for their rooms.

Arch decided to wait out there for a while staring at the curving white domes, their tiles illuminated in the sunlight, the guns poking out from their walls, each one a marvel of destructive technology. He stayed out there for hours until it was nighttime and all of the soldiers had been loaded on. Suddenly the deck became crowded again, it was time for the engines to start up. The whispering came into his ear again, "all onboard, hold on and prepare for fleet departure. Suddenly the horns of the sailors on deck started to glow all directed at a large apparatus in the center of the deck, it looked like a white generator. Arch decided to chip in, everyone onboard had a shift to help run the engines, and he might as well get his done now. The generator started to glow on the inside, from small slits in it waves of different colors came out, each on the aura of one the sailors magic. Arch intensified his magic and he noticed that the glow seemed to have more of a light blue tint to it, the same color as his magic aura. The generator began to hum, however it was not spinning, it was channeling, wires from it lead all the way through the hull and into the engines. Suddenly it reached the engines, the ship started to move, their magical energy was being expelled out of the engines, the ship was propelled by jets of magical energy. Behind the ship the water started to glow, the magic being expelled out the engines was causing this, it was a jet powered battleship.

The entire fleet starting moving as well, faster and faster, the water glowing behind the ship started to be brighter than the reflection of the moon, now Arch understood the name Aurora. The ships were going very fast cutting water between them, the fleet would move so fast that they would reach Equestria within a week.

**That's right folks, unicorns, and magic, wait till some of the magical battles, I have tons of excellent ideas for them and if you have any than submit them to me. Unfortunately however I wont have another chapter until 2 weeks from now, and after that I wont have a new one for over a month. I'm sorry for these waits, and I hope you forgive me and keep reading, please review, submit your OC's and ideas, I will listen to them I promise.**


	15. Port Dawn

**Newest chapter is here, enjoy, on a side note I'm looking for someone who can do some fan art, I cannot draw myself but if any of my readers can I would love it if you could draw some art for the story, it would really bring it to life and I would post a link to your work here, if any of you are interested Private Message me so I can post a link to it, thanks.**

**15. Port Dawn**

Sartos was lying in bed half asleep listening to the creaking of the ship and the sound of Lou's reading aloud. He had recently gotten another book, "A History of Pre Revolutionary Influential Ponies."

"Name: Rarity, race: unicorn, born 312 E.E. died 386 E.E." Lou read.

"During the foundation of the unicorn hierarchy Rarity used her friends in the council to push her agendas. A close friend of Twilight Sparkle herself and later the wife of prominent business pony and second head of the unicorn council Fancy Pants, she used their roles in government to push agendas for her fashion industry. The use of slave labor camps for textile manufacturing is one such example, most historians credit her with establishing the cultural norm for wearing clothes as her laws made it so nudity was associated with slavery. She died an incredibly wealthy aristocrat in 386 E.E.

He flipped a page and read the next entry, "Name: Fluttershy, race: pegasus, born 314 E.E died unknown."

He continued reading, "Fluttershy, a close friend of Twilight Sparkle, was sent to forced a labor camp however she was the first slave to ever lead a slave rebellion and successfully escape. After escaping she used her extraordinary talents with animals to lead raids on unicorn villages and liberate slave camps through the use of trained monsters. These actions prompted the extermination of monstrous and magical creatures from Equestria, although the monsters were exterminated many of the slaves liberated from camps by her lived on and formed what would later be the resistance. Fluttershy's actual fate is unknown, some say she was killed with her monsters but others say that she joined the escaped slaves and lived on."

Lou read another entry.

"Name: Applejack, race: earth pony, born 313 E.E. died 382 E.E.

Applejack was a crucial leader in the resistance, liberated from a slave camp by Fluttershy's monsters she ensured the safety of many escaped slave by developing their hiding system. Applejack struck a treaty with the diamond dogs, allowing resistance use of the tunnels for hiding in exchange for revealing the locations of gem mining slave camps. The dogs accepted and lead raids on gem mining camps taking the gems while the ponies liberated the slaves inside those camps. This fostered a friendship between the two races which would last until the revolution, when the unicorns exterminated the slave's diamond dog allies. Applejack was also the first to use the dog's tunnels for communications. In slave rebellions the slaves would often win but would then be killed afterwards by a larger force sent in. The communications system allowed camps to revolt at the same time and form a larger force, or escape into the tunnels before unicorn reinforcements could arrive. Eventually this communication system would allow every single slave camp to all revolt at the same time which started the revolution. Unfortunately Applejack died long before the revolution but she is still credited with being essential to the eventual victory."

Lou turned a page and read the next one, "Name: Pinkamena 'pinkie' Diane Pie race: earth pony, born 311 E.E. died (unknown)

Pinkamena is important not for influence to the course of history, but her tales of escape are so widely known that it is necessary she be included in this book. A close friend of Twilight Sparkle's she attempted to try and stop her from enslaving earth ponies and pegasi. Twilight Sparkle ordered her executed for these treasonous sentiments but she managed to miraculously escape the Canterlot castle dungeons while awaiting execution. She lead unicorn guards on a wild goose chase all through Equestria for the next 4 years, these 4 years have been the subject of many books recounting her incredible tales of narrow escape. After this period it is said she fled eastward to the changeling lands and from there took a boat across the great ocean. Some say she lives with the nersotath now who look on her as a great magician these reports are probably fabricated as she is an earth pony, other ideas suggest"-

"Look alive!" a soldier burst into the room interrupting Lou in mid sentence.

Startled Lou threw the book into the air, which promptly landed on his head.

"We're at Port Dawn and the enemy fleet is in sight, Illiyad we need you on deck for a boarding party, doctor, get together some medical supplies, we need you to help set up an emergency medical camp when we establish a beachhead."

Illiyad leapt out of bed and ran out of the room, it was frantic outside, soldiers were running through the hall, all headed for the deck. Illiyad moved with the crowd like a white pebble drifting through a torrent. On deck (which had ceased to be windy as the ship had slowed down)there were hundreds of soldiers, some were harnessed up for boarding action, others manning the 4 guns. The rest of the navy was the same, swarming with soldiers and massive guns ready to fire, the largest ships were incredibly intimidating when ready for battle. In the distance Illiyad could see the earth pony fleet, it was miniscule compared to theirs, most of their ships had been destroyed in previous battles. They were coming closer.

Suddenly a call rang out from the deck, "Commence boarding action!"

Similar calls resounded through the fleet, the pegasi took flight, thousands of colors of wings took flight creating a mosaic across the sky. Illiyad flew with them and while in flight got his bearings for what seemed to be a purely hectic procedure. He was called over by a high ranking pegasus who ordered him to board one of the larger earth pony ships.

He flew towards the ship with many others, the ship was similar to pegasus ones except it lacked sails and instead had tall smokestacks, and on its deck there were AA guns. As soon as they got close the AA guns started firing. Explosions burst in the air, Illiyad saw many pegasi engulfed in the flames. He moved away from the group and tried moving up and down to avoid the fire. Fortunately for him a pegasus artillery shell from one of the ships smashed into this ship ripping off the bow and taking an AA gun with it. Illiyad alighted near the area where the bow had been and saw one of 8 massive 4 barreled guns firing at the pegasus fleet near to him. Several other pegasi were landing and all taking cover behind crates and the like that were on deck, others were flying around fighting the rifle harnessed earth ponies on deck. Illiyad, seeing these rifle ponies took cover behind a rack of life jackets, although he had a shield it wasn't much use.

The shield itself was one of the most advanced pieces of pegasus technology, it contained just enough lightweight metal to block bullets but still be easily movable. The problem was not its blocking power, but the fact that it was very hard to protect yourself against the hail of bullets coming your way. The shield was strapped to the forearm and maneuvering it to perfectly block the path of bullets coming towards you was impossible. The shield was for show more than anything else, a church members real defense was his speed and skill. The shield was gilded and emblazoned with the mark of the church, it represented the church's protection over its soldiers. Meanwhile the sword carried by church members represented divine punishment, and the white robes purity. In truth church members were not used for their fighting capabilities, they were meant to boost morale, the knightly sword and shield inspired the men, that was the church members real goal.

Illiyad ducked behind the life jackets, six other pegasi took cover near him.

"Listen!" he exclaimed over the din of battle, "those massive guns are operated manually, kill their crew, the gods will protect you, fly at them, and kill them all!"

They all leapt from cover and into the air, several were shot down instantly but they all flew toward 4 of the massive guns. They were all on raised platforms and were being fired by two ponies. Illiyad set his eye on one, he flew up into the air, and them came down sword point first like a lightning bolt. He skewered one of the guns crew and then in an astonishing move bounded off him with his shield, doing a 180 degree flip upright taking the sword out of that pony and slicing it down into the next. He now stood upright with their bodies next to him, the gun would not fire again.

Another gun fell silent, two pegasi had shot the crew of it, but suddenly from the deck not to far below an earth pony started to fire at Illiyad. He desperately blocked out with his shield and scooted back using the cannon for cover. Then Illiyad flew upwards form his cover and smashed down onto the pony who had been firing at him, he quickly slashed him open before taking flight again.

From the air he could see that they were taking over the deck, the earth ponies were desperately trying to get back inside and the pegasi had taken out the rest of the guns.

Suddenly a pegasus flew in and called to Illiyad, "Tell everyone to get back to the fleet, we're about to sink the ship!"

Illiyad relayed the message, "EVERYONE BACK TO THE FLEET!" he yelled at the top of his lungs reaching everypony on deck, he flew away from the ship and back towards the _Cobalt_.

Standard pegasus naval tactics consist of crippling a ships ability to fight back by sending boarding parties to destroy its weapons, then firing on it with heavy cannons, sinking it. The pegasus navy would almost always win a naval engagement, the combination of faster ships and easy boarding parties made them a force to be reckoned with.

Panting, Illiyad made it back to the ship, once on it he could see the ship he was just on sunk by a salvo from several ships including the _Cobalt_. The pegasi were of course winning, they had lost only two small ships and already the fleet had completed the boarding actions and was sinking the ships. After a few minutes of the fireworks display the fleet was on the move again, they moved between the burning wreckage of the earth pony ships drifting in the water. No one had feared the earth pony fleet, the problem was the infamous naval guns of Port Dawn. He could see them now, coming just over the horizon, they were huge, lined up along the docks all fearsome towers of metal. But as he got closer he noticed something, they we're turned away from them. (remember chapter 9)

He heard a call ring out "quickly fire at the guns, before they turn around!"

The gunners fired, similar blasts were heard throughout the fleet, the artillery shells smacked into the naval guns, ripping holes in them and ripping the iron into strange contorted shapes.

The guns started to turn around but slowly, but more shells crashed into them, knocking them over and spreading iron bits over the docks. One fell into a crane which in turn crashed into the sides of the dry dock cracking the concrete and smashing a ship docked in that space. One gun managed to turn around fully and fire a shot, it had fearsome power, the massive shell smashed into a ship ripping it apart in a fiery explosion with one blast. The rest of the fleet concentrated fire on the gun and quickly felled it while rescuing several pegasi who had barely flown off of that ship before it exploded.

The ships moved in towards the docks preparing to land, a call rose out from a high ranking officer flying over the deck, "GET FLYING, ESTABLSIH A BEACHEAD AT THE DOCKS, GO NOW!" He took off with the rest of the ponies on deck flying towards the dock where the cannons were now lying ruined. On the docks a contingent of earth ponies had assembled waiting with guns lying in cover behind crates. Several walkers were there, guns pointed skyward, but they were out of range for now.

A pegasus flew up next to Illiyad, a captain, outranking him, pravosts were equal in rank to military lieutenants, but served a different role. This pegasus was dark blue with a spiked black mane, a large scar ran over his left eye and he had on goggles which did little to hide his insane glare. His hind leg was in a brace, but he didn't seem to be hindered by it.

"Listen!" he barked, "when we get down there you have command of my men, okay."

A wave of narcissism mixed with mad obsession, the kind of strange ecstasy of knowing your impending martyrdom, washed over Illiyad based on his tone, "why?" Illiyad asked.

"Im, gonna be a little busy," he said insanely grinning, suddenly he broke off from the group, flying much faster than the rest.

He was suicidal, thought Illiyad, as he saw him rush ahead, the walkers saw it too, they fired their cannons at him and explosions burst in the air. But the strange pony was unharmed he dived and ducked away with complex maneuvers avoiding the cannon fire. He was drawing away the walker's fire, allowing the main group to move in. The walkers realized their error soon enough and fired on the group of pegasi, but they were already at the docks, seeing the walker's cannons, the group dived down and landed on the docks, leaving the blasts far above them. Illiyad and his band landed on the docks and suddenly broke off diving for cover behind the crates and steam machinery littering the docks.

Illiyad instead tried a different approach he flew over his men ordering, "take cover behind the cranes!"

There were 4 cranes still standing in the shipyard, Illiyad and many of the pegasi flew behind them and crouched nestled in their iron bars. Suddenly a walker started firing at the crane Illiyad was nestled in. It exploded slightly under where Illiyad was, the crane was toppling over in two pieces. An iron bar nearly struck Illiyad in the head as it bent in two, but Illiyad was fast he flew down dodging the iron bars and emerged flying just above the ground as the crane toppled behind him. He flew sword first into an earth pony before flying back around and taking cover behind a crate.

It was a standstill the earth ponies were firing and preventing the pegasi from leaving cover, but suddenly the fire broke off. Illiyad looked over his crate and the insane dark blue pegasus from earlier had flown directly into the cockpit of a walker and was now slashing its crew to bits. Without the direction of its crew the walker was stumbling around forcing the earth ponies to leave their cover to avoid being stepped on.

Now was their time, Illiyad ordered the pegasi to attack, they flew out of cover and crashed right into the earth pony line, swords flew out as they slashed them while pegasi higher up shot down at fleeing earth ponies. Illiyad flew headfirst into a walker, smashing its windshield with his shield. The crew flailed desperately, kicking at him in vain trying to get away. But the cockpit was confined and he slashed one down, his sword crashing into him as the earth ponies blood covered the controls.

The other one tried to throw him off balance by making the cockpit tilt forward, it nearly worked, Illiyad was almost thrown down but he held onto a control panel and climbed up it, before stabbing the pilot. He jumped back out of the walker leaving it to collapse in a pile of containers.

Observing the situation he saw that the earth ponies were falling back from the docks and moving into the twisting labyrinth of streets making up Port Dawn. Most of their forces had been taken out, but it looked as if further inside the city there were earth pony soldiers hidden in every house, waiting to strike. The walkers were all taken out, and the pegasi were grouping in the harbor. Now would come the hard part, they would have to flush out the remaining earth ponies like rats.

A pegasus was flying above them, calling orders out, he was a church member, but in addition to the white robes there was a black hood, marking him as an angilicad the third rank of a church member, he was commanding them. His underside was white but his back was the color of midnight, he had a blue silver mane whipping behind him as he flew.

"Groups of ten!" He called from above, "go building by building, every group must have one commander, at lest the rank of sergeant, kill every earth pony inside the buildings!"

Immediately several ponies flocked to Illiyad, he decided to pick 10 randomly from the group and ordered them to follow him, He met with them near a wreck of a walker.

"Listen," Illiyad said to those gathered before him, "We are going to sweep along the row of buildings nearest to us. The one right next to the docks is already empty, if it wasn't we would be getting fired upon, so we can skip that one and go straight on from there. Move like water, sweep through the building, divide evenly and take a floor, go through one window and come out the window on the other side. Kill anyone inside, gods be with you."

The squad nodded and they took off flying over the first building and saw the next. It was a station for towing walkers so it had no floors just an awning covering several small towing walkers, they moved past it. The building after that was a brick building, 3 stories, a small tavern, a place for sailors and traders looking to realx. Illiyad swept the top floor smashing the window with his shield, it looked like living quarters for the owner, but it as empty. He crashed out a window on the other side and met up with those sweeping the other two floors, they were making great time. The next building looked to be a tenement, 5 stories.

Once again Illiyad took the upper story, but this one was not empty. A surprised soldier fired a few rounds at Illiyad as he crashed through the window but they were deflected by his shield. Illiyad crashed into him with his shield knocking him unconscious before stabbing him. Illiyad flew back out the window and crashed through the window of every other apartment room along that side of the building, there were no other earth ponies. The other pony with him zoomed ahead and Illiyad followed. Outside, the squad had encountered one other earth pony on the third floor which they had killed, but one pegasus had died, Illiyad said a short prayer, then they moved on without blinking.

Coming to the fourth building, it was similar, another tenement housing the innumerable amount of poor dock workers. In this one there were no soldiers but it was crowded with its residents. The earth ponies cowered in shock and fear every time Illiyad crashed through a window. They were tiny rooms, huddled with massive families, poor soot covers workers desperately tried to defend their families but Illiyad paid no attention to them. Outside clothing lines were strung up which he had to dodge, one row of buildings over he saw different squad of pegasi sweeping through that row.

After that building he met his squad outside again, there had been two soldiers hiding in apartments, they were both killed but several civilians had died with them. Illiyad paid no heed to their deaths, they were about to fly into the fifth building when they heard explosions. They decided to land on the roof of that building and see what was going on. From there they could see it, the navy was shelling the city, buildings were exploding into plies of brick and concrete. There were pegasi flying over head dropping leaflets in the street and calling out at the top of their lungs.

"THE SHELLING WILL END WHEN ALL MILITARY PERSONELL SURRENDER AND REPORT TO THE DOCKS FOR IMMEDIATE IMPRISONMENT!"

"Come on, the navy has a different procedure," Illiyad said to his squad before flying back to the docks, they followed him."

Landing back at the docks Illiyad saw the pegasi setting up camp, the few earth ponies who had already surrendered were being ushered inside a building by the docks which was being guarded and surrounded with razor wire. Meanwhile in the customs office, medics had set up a hospital and were overflowing with wounded pegasi on gurneys, the wounded earth ponies were left to die. Inside several of the seaside buildings small beds were being loaded on and turned into soldiers quarters and mess halls and armories. Soon when all the earth ponies surrendered these procedures would happen further inland. A curfew would be instated for civilians and pegasi would patrol the streets. The factories would begin to produce weapons for the pegasi army and the walkers would be dismantled and used for scrap metal, steam machines were sacrilegious.

Illiyad walked into the makeshift to hospital, to see if he could be any use, most likely to say prayers for the dying. Inside he saw Lou frantically performing surgery on a pegasus who was bleeding profusely. He watched Lou for a few seconds, suddenly the wounded pegasus started gargling blood, then Lou slumped back in his seat and buried his face in his hooves. Illiyad walked over and said a quick prayer, blessing the pony and his soul that it may join the herd of the 3 great pegasi in the heavens.

"Thanks," Lou muttered, "I need to do some more work now, these wounded keep coming, most don't survive, have a good day, I suppose." He walked away still downcast. Illiyad left the hospital, and went back out into the docks, the cobbled ground was littered with debris, and smoke was still rising from the bodies of walkers and the fallen cranes. Outside, Illiyad saw the insane pony again, he went up to him.

"You, I remember you, you're the one who drew the cannon fire away, and took down that walker."

"Well someone remembers," the pony said, smiling the same demented smile with the wild look in his eye.

"Name's Blackhawk," he pronounced grinning offering to shake hooves.

"That's not a name," Illiyad said skeptically accepting the shake.

"No you're right its not I made it up, but it sounds cool so that's what you're gonna call me okay," he said grinning patting Illiyad on the back and then walked away.

Walking away Illiyad again noticed the brace on his hind leg, it wasn't hindering him in any way, it didn't look like his leg was damaged, it looked to be a part of his harness.

A young soldier, an aid or a messenger perhaps, flew next to Illiyad.

"Church member's quarters are in that building over there", he said pointing to a small office on the docks.

Illiyad walked over there, it was a former earth pony naval office, but now it was lined with uncomfortable beds with a thin green blanket, standard issue for soldiers. Illiyad took and empty bed and de-harnessed himself hanging up his harness against a hook by his bed. He fell back into his bed, feeling it spring uncomfortably, with the intention of sleeping all through lunch and dinner and well into next morning.

He was soon disturbed however by someone in a neighboring bed, it was the angilicad, the one with the midnight top but was white on the bottom, the commanding church member there. He was cleaning a long black sword, it was ugly, but at the same time beautiful, chipped and curved and distorted but yet subtly so and bearing the marks of its age as badges of honor.

"I saw you fight today, you did well, I might recommend you for a promotion, we'll see," he said all the while not looking up from his sword, he than started mumbling.

"Im sorry what was that?" Illiyad inquired.

"Nothing, the angilicad responded, "just a prayer for the dead and dying."

Illiyad leaned back in his bed, another salvo of shots from the navy hit the city and rocked the building. It would be 14 hours before all the earth ponies surrendered and then the cannons would stop.

**Hope you enjoyed the chapter, remember, if any of you can do fan art, please make some. Unfortunately I wont have another chapter for this story for around 6 more weeks, sorry, but rest assured I have not stopped, and in mid august you will see more chapters again, I may be able to fit one in, in the next week, but I'm not certain so don't count on it.**


	16. Escape

**The Newest chapter is here, this will be the last one for 6 weeks or so, I'm still looking for any fan art. If anyone can give me an idea of a good time to post this story so people would see it that would be great, I'm still trying to get more readers. Anyway enjoy this chapter, review, share this story with other bronies, thanks. Also this chapter references religion a lot so keep in mind that I am talking about the religion of the pegasi, not any real religions, everything in this story is done within the realm of this story.**

**(just for clarification, in a zeppelin the balloon is the part filled with helium, or in this case vacuum, and the gondola is the part where people are)**

**16. Escape**

Cloudy was lead into the executor's room, it was surprisingly plain, a desk with a small gas lamp, and a large chair sitting a pony. He was a white pony with a gray mane, his robes flowed down to his feet and were embroidered in a manner like that of the stain glass windows depicting stories and religious tradition.

"Please leave him," the pony sitting in the chair said.

"Sir we recommend we stay here, for your protection," a guard said to the executor.

"The gods will protect me," the executor said flatly.

The guards left the room closing the door behind them.

"You and your kind will be punished by the gods you heathens!" the executor yelled.

"Your imaginary gods have no power over anypony!" Cloudy shot back.

The executor waited for a few seconds, then he quickly looked around before completely changing his tone and speaking.

"Oh come now, give me some credit, you didn't really expect me to believe all that dribble, I was just waiting until the guards were out of earshot."

"Wait what!" Cloudy exclaimed, "you're the head of a religion you don't even believe in?"

"Of course," the executor said smirking, "technically I'm not the leader just the head of the military but essentially yes. It makes sense actually, since I don't believe it I can change it however I wish in perfectly clear conscience."

"But why would maintain the religion if you don't believe it?" Cloudy asked.

The executor looked at him with contempt, "I though you were smart, a scientist, how could you be so blind, I maintain it because it is the single greatest instrument the military has at our disposal. Look at it this way, we control people through religion, we use it to manipulate our population with no repercussions. Let me give you an example, the attack you just made, that was five hours ago, two hours after the news spread to every corner of the nation. Over the past 3 hours recruitment stations have had lines down the block, in Las Pegasus two recruitment stations separated by miles had lines so long they connected. By tomorrow we expect a 25% troop increase, and much more in the coming weeks. You probably think you are winning the war, and for now you are, that was foreseeable. However our greatest strength is not in flight, but in numbers, and since the war has started our numbers have spiked. We are like the hydra, for every town you take and every person you kill, more join the fight to avenge those deaths. We don't even have a draft, every soldier in our ranks is there of their own accord, all to defend their religion. That is why I maintain it."

"But it is terrible for your people! They work all day to build your massive cathedrals and make munitions and give away what little money they have to the church. Then they all live in squalid conditions, all because your church told them to, Cloudy responded outraged."

"But at least they do so happily," the executor fired back gazing at Cloudy as if he was peering into his soul.

He leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtful, "what was the motto of your government again," he said thoughtfully, "oh right, better lives through science. And I must admit your people have made some incredible scientific advancements. But there is a problem, people don't just need science and technology to exist, they need to have wealth to access it. And who controls all your wealth, only a few ponies, and those are the ones who really have the power.

Your government is hilarious, you do a brilliant job of scientific advancement but nothing more. Your politicians have no connection to the populace, and this allows them to be controlled easily. They have no idea what things are really like, they are blinded by your elite. They know nothing of the small pay and hard toil of the factory worker. But the elite convinces them they do, they tell them that manufacturing is up and that new scientific advancements are coming every day. They are right, but the politicians think this means the people are happy too. However the elite control the scientific advancement, and control the manufacturing and all the wealth, and they are the only ones who have a better life through science.

So yes my people live in squalid conditions and yes they toil for the elite which in our case would be us the church, however at least they do so happily."

"But you are completely stagnant, nothing is changing in your society, things will never be better for you but they will be better for our people, they will, politicians will change or maybe there will be a revolution," Cloudy responded agitated.

"Trust me if you have gone this long without a revolution, you aren't getting one," the executor said smirking.

"Cloudy, you and I are very similar, we are both ponies of logic and reason, we are both quite smart, at least I would like to think so, we both want power, whether or not you know it yet, and we both want what is best for our people."

"You don't want what is best for your people!" Cloudy spat back.

"I'm getting there," The executor said raising his hoof for Cloudy to stop speaking.

"The difference between you and me is that you are more religious than I am, funny isn't it."

"That makes absolutely no sense," Cloudy said bewildered.

"Actually it does," the executor responded, "because you do have faith in something, you have faith in ponies, you think that the populace is rational, and logical, and smart and good, just as you are. But I know that they aren't, and that is why they need to be controlled, I do it with religion, the earth pony elite do I with wealth and technology, whichever method is better, I suppose the war will tell us that won't it? No matter what though, ponies will always need control and because I want what is best for my people, is the reason I do it with religion, because with religion they do the work willingly even though I am deceiving them."

Cloudy sat there for several moments, rolling the idea around in his head like someone tasting fine wine.

In the end he only said one thing, "You would make a good earth pony."

"There's no difference," the executor said quite simply staring at a fly on the wall, his attention had veered off, the executor had nothing more to say.

Understanding Cloudy left the room himself, he made no attempt at escape, the guards were waiting further down the hall, they would to take him back to the prison camp.

It was cold and dark inside the balloon of the _Thunder Strike_, the basalt fiber balloon split into eight sections was usually completely void of oxygen, but the vacuum was shut off and air flowed in. But it was still cold, dark, and cavernous, and Spark Storm felt a shiver as he leaned back against the cold surface. The blue pony with a spiked light blue mane streaked with jets of black was in a large semi circular section of the _Thunder Strike's_ balloon.

When the ponies were being rushed off the airship and into the prisoner camps, on the order of Cloudy eight ponies had used maintenance hatches to each crawl inside a section of the balloon. Spark Storm was one of them and he was now waiting in the pitch black cold section for the signal. Then it came, unmistakable, a knocking, from the section next to him. Spark storm relayed it to the other sections near him, soon they all got the message.

Spark felt along in the dark until he found a small handle, he pulled it open with his mouth and slipped down through the hatch. The pegasi had done searches of the airship, but none of them had found the discreet maintenance hatches to the balloon sections, each hatch carefully hidden in the roofs of small closets. Cloudy tumbled out of the massive metal balloon and into a small and unlit closet. He fell flat on his back in an awkward position and it took him a minute to come to his senses and right himself.

He slowly and quietly cracked the door open, the closet led out into the hallway which was lit barely by the lantern being carried by a pegasus guard patrolling the corridor. Fortunately Spark had brought a silenced pistol affixed to his hoof, he silently padded close to the guard before firing at him. He hit him square in the head and the guard tumbled to the ground, Spark extended a hoof out slowing the fall and preventing the body from making a loud noise when hitting the ground.

The hall was empty, he carefully walked over to the door of the bridge and cracked it open. There were two pegasi sitting down in chairs with a lantern between them. Poking his gun through the door Spark Storm shot them both allowing them to both slump backward in their chairs, dead. Back in the hallway, the rest of the earth ponies inside the balloon had gathered, the _Thunder Strike_ was clear of pegasi.

Outside there were four pegasi walking around the _Thunder Strike, _"listen, I'm going to take out the pegasi patrolling, wait here," Spark Storm said.

Spark Storm opened a window, outside it was night, the moon hung high in the sky, the small crescent cast a faint glow, it was a dark night. Spark Storm waited for one of the pegasi was directly below the window, then he slipped out. Spark Storm landed square on the pegasus's back with his two front hooves. It snapped the pegasus's back killing him instantly. Spark Storm bounded onto all fours and quickly kicked the body of the dead pegasus into the shadows of the gondola.

He resumed the same patrol path as the dead pegasus so as not to arouse suspicion from the other ones patrolling. He walked around the front of the gondola and saw another pegasus ahead of him. From that distance he could barely see him so he moved to a faster pace until he was close enough, then he shot him.

Spark Storm quickly turned around as another pegasus was coming around that side of the gondola, Spark Storm shot him as he came around. He waited for the last one to walk around and shot him as well.

He walked back to the window where he had left from, standing on two hoofs and propping himself against the windowsill he gave orders to his comrades inside.

"Six of you come with me, Dragon Hide, I want you inside, start up the vacuum if you hear gunshots, but not before, it will cause too much noise. Everypony has to leave through the windows, opening the main door might be too conspicuous, sorry."

Grumbling the six ponies shuffled awkwardly out the windows, once outside they focused their attention on the prison camp.

It had been hastily erected so there was no perimeter fence but there was some barbed wire surrounding it and makeshift towers sporting machineguns were at the corners of the encampment.

"Listen up," Spark Storm whispered "we need four ponies to take over the guns, use the darkness for cover, once on top give us the signal by waving the machinegun up and down. Once you do that we will move into camp, when I fire an un-silenced shot, kill all the pegasi."

The ponies nodded and set about their tasks, Spark Storm watched from the shadows as the black shapes crept across the ground, up the guard towers and dispatched of the pegasi inside. One after another the machine guns moved up and down, Spark Storm could barely see it through the darkness, but he managed.

He and the two other ponies moved silently across the dark clouds, they got to the barbed wire perimeter and held it as each squeezed through. Inside there were guards moving everywhere, several were doing a walk around the perimeter while others stood outside tents.

The 3 ponies split into 3 groups, each was going to the tents to inform the earth ponies of the escape.

Spark Storm shot two pegasi doing a perimeter walk and then silently crawled near a group of tents. There was a pegasus outside, Spark Storm shot him in the foot and covered his mouth as he fell down and screamed, then he put another bullet into his head. He silently crept into the first tent, there were 6 ponies there, and though it was dark he recognized them as part of the engine crew. He woke each up by placing a hoof over their mouth and telling them to be silent before releasing it. When they were all awake he relayed his message.

"Listen we are escaping here, when you here a shot run out of the tent towards the _Thunder Strike_, just do it, we will take care of the guards."

He crept outside again and moved to the next tent sticking to the shadows, there was another guard outside of this one who he killed with a careful shot to the head. Inside he relayed the same message, then he moved onto the tent near it, but this one had two guards. He decided that instead of shooting them he would enter the tent another way. He barely managed to get past them, he moved inches at a time, he clung to the shadows as if it were the only life raft in an endless sea. It seemed like a lifetime before he was finally past their view. He lifted up the side of the tent, inside the pony was awake, sitting quietly in the shadows, his face perked up in surprise as Spark Storm walked in but he said nothing, it was the captain. He explained the plan to him before creeping out the way he came, he repeated the process until all the tents had heard the news. He met up with the other 3 at the back of the camp, then Spark Storm unscrewed the silencer and fired a loud shot directly into a patrolling pegasus.

The turbines in the _Thunder Strike_ roared to life slowly draining the massive balloon of air. But this noise was nothing compared to that coming from the encampment, the machine guns on the towers had come to life firing a hail of bullets on the guards. The ground became lit up with the spark of striking bullets rebounding off the hard clouds. The machine gunners managed to steer their fire clear of the tents and within seconds the guards were dead and a storm of earth ponies was racing towards the airship parked in the clearing.

Pegasi poured out of nearby buildings not just from the doors but windows as well, all had been hastily harnessed. But as they poured out they were cut down by machine gunners, the spray of bullets creating an unstoppable torrent upon which the soldiers met their doom. A pegasus managed to get close enough to a guard tower to shoot one of the gunners, and his gun fell silent but the rest of the gunners were still firing.

On the ground Cloudy was racing with his herd of crewponies they were almost to the _Thunder Strike_. The thunderous rumble of their hooves shook the clouds themselves and they quickly reached the doors which were opened by Ensign Dragon Hide. Inside Cloudy rushed to the bridge, and started barking orders.

"Vacuum turbines at 100% get us in the air, NOW!"

"Already at 100% sir, it will be a while before we become light enough," a crewpony responded.  
>The machineguns had stopped firing and the gunners had joined the stampede and were now running at the back of the group desperately trying to get to the airship. Fortunately the machineguns of the <em>Thunder Strike<em> were now firing but they lacked the vantage point of the tower guns and most pegasi were flying above their firing range, soon the pegasi would be upon them and they would be captured all over again. Finally all the earth ponies made it inside the airship.

"Fire the cannon!" Cloudy barked to his men.

"Sir the cannon is pointed at the ground, should I raise it?" A crewpony asked.

"FIRE THE BUCKING CANNON!" Cloudy roared and the crewpony quickly covered his eyes and pulled the lever down firing it.

The cannon exploded into a million pieces shards of it pierced the walls and the entire thing became a distorted hunk of wreckage. The large glass window shattered as well as the entire front area of the bridge which was now scattered ashes. The clouds beneath the _Thunder Strike_ also caved in and the airship fell through.

Without the balloon drained of air the dirigible fell like a stone, what's more since with air the balloon weighed more than the gondola, the zeppelin fell into a crazy spinning motion spinning the entire ship as if it were a washing machine.

Cloudy was thrown about like a rag, he was thrust into the back wall and then up onto the ceiling and back to the floor as the _Thunder Strike_ spun in every direction. Several times he was thrown towards the front, but he managed to avoid falling out the front window. He was slung onto each wall before the airship turned again into a nose dive, Cloudy clung onto a control panel but he managed to see Commander Cannon be flung out the front into the open sky. The gap hung there, a hole in the very fabric of reality, everything that Cloudy held dear felt as if it would be swallowed by that hole. It was death itself, that hole was oblivion, nothingness, open sky, it seemed to drag him in with every second. Then the airship flung Cloudy to the floor and then back onto the ceiling. On the ceiling his leg got caught between the wall and a large cannon shard embedded in the wall. When the ship turned he would have been thrown to the floor. However he remained caught there and he felt a wrenching sensation in his leg before slipping from the panel and falling to the ground.

Slowly the balloon was emptied of air during its fall, it eventually became lighter and the gondola shifted back into normal position, the crazy tumble turned into a gentle rocking from left to right. The fall slowed, eventually Cloudy was able to stand up instead of being thrown to the ground, and then, it stopped altogether, the airship had stopped only a few hundred feet above the ground.

Cloudy surveyed the destruction, a control panel was thrown to the other side of the room exposing its gears now lying in disarray. The cannon was completely gone except for a few shards in the wall and the stump of the aiming and loading platform. Only 3 other ponies had managed to not get flung out the front, Spark Storm, one of the cannon crew who had clung to the stump, and a Ensign Dragon Hide who was now lying motionless but still breathing under the panel that had flung loose.

Cloudy's leg was not broken but it was badly sprained and bleeding, he was limping there, but he was more concerned with the concussion he had most likely sustained. He walked out of the bridge, opening the door with his hoof which promptly fell down considering it had been dislodged from its hinges. Cloudy sighed and looked upon the hallway. Fortunately there were no ponies that had fallen out, however they were all lying on the ground in confusion, many were unconscious, and one had his head split open and was lying motionless.

Cloudy decided to check on his room, everything was a mess, his gramophone had contorted into a strange shape and he dared not play it. His desk was upside down and broken in many areas and his bed had the frame, mattress, and sheets all in opposite corners of the room. However it seemed, by some act of divine intervention perhaps, that Cloudy's beloved swivel chair was unharmed and standing as it should, ready to be sat in. His thinking chair, his one place where he felt safe and disconnected from the war was still pristine, Cloudy nearly hugged the chair. Instead he sat in it and spun around in it gleefully like a foal. After that display of foalishness (childishness not foolishness) he decided to start acting like a captain and walked back into the hallway.

"Men!" he said gathering himself up to address the scattered crew, "Get this ship ready for flight, take wounded crewmembers to their cabins for rest, wake the unconscious, lets go come on!"

His crew promptly followed his orders and began working like a well oiled machine. With a smile of satisfaction Cloudy walked back through the door and onto the bridge. He walked over to the area where the window had once been and peered out. He saw the ground beneath them, a long stretching plain in the shadow of the mountains, and above him he saw just barely Cloudsdale. The airship had fallen too low to be spotted, as far as the pegasi knew, the _Thunder Strike_ and its crew had fallen to their deaths.

"Lieutenant Spark Storm, based on your exemplary actions in freeing the crew of this ship, and frankly more than else the fact that you are still alive, I am promoting you to commander, and giving you the title of my first officer. Now please take us to the nearest earth pony base, make sure you stay low to avoid pegasi patrols. And please get us quickly because the pegasi raided the liquor cabinet and damn it, I'm no alcoholic but I need a bucking drink," Cloudy said to Spark Storm.

"Yes sir!" Spark Storm responded enthusiastically.

**Well there you have it, make sure to review, and see you again in six weeks, but it may be a bit longer or shorter, depends.**


	17. Breaking and Entering

**Well im finally back and writing, so I hope you enjoy this chapter, it might take me longer to write chapters for a bit considering that I have to re-write chapter 10, for some reason it got replaced with chapter 9 and the document got deleted from my uploaded documents on the website, along with several other chapters, although they are still normal. Anyway if anybody has experienced something like this before and knows how to solve it I am all ears, otherwise will have to re-write it, anyway review this chapter, submit OC's, you know the drill.**

**Chapter 17. Breaking and Entering**

Carth walked into the hotel room staggering and covered with bruises and cuts, clutching a bottle of liquor in his mouth. Sartos was huddled over a table, a lamp in front of him shone down over a piece of paper he was staring at, he did not look up as Carth entered.

"Hiya!" Carth said rather loudly, his intoxication making him forget how to control the volume of his voice, he slammed the door shut behind him by kicking his leg out. Sartos rotated in his swivel chair and looked away from the table at Carth.

"What have you been doing?" he asked only half inquisitively.

"Well I was at this high society ball thing, see I just walked in there with a fancy tuxedo I bought with some money from the PIET bank accounts and they let me in without asking who I was first. Anyway at this party they were serving free liquor, but I was not the only one to drink it mind you. These upper class folks were all over it, and let me tell you, rich people are mean drunks. The entire ballroom ended up turning into a boxing ring as they fought over business ventures and company takeovers, that sorta thing. As for me I joined in just for fun! An hour or so later I woke up in a pool of vomit and blood along with several of the rich people and their servants and such. Anyway I ended up chatting with this on rich guy and investing some of PIET's money into his company. He was so grateful he offered me his personal walker, apparently if you can afford one you can buy walkers outside of the military. So I took it for a spin and promptly ended up crashing into an empty carriage, at which point he asked for it back, so then I swiped as much liquor from the party as possible and left." Carth finished his story smiling.

"What company did you invest in?" Sartos asked not really caring.

"I don't know, I think it was United Front Enterprises or something like that."

Sartos closed his eyes took a deep breath and responded rather calmly.

"Congratulations Carth you just invested money belonging to the pegasus military in a company which is a weapons manufacturer for the earth pony army."

Carth's eyes went wide, he slowly responded, "well… yes technically, but... you could look at it as a win-win situation. Because if the company goes under that is one less manufacturer of weapons, but if it succeeds we get money for it."

"Our soldiers also get lead inside them," Sartos responded now glaring, "as for me I have been here doing work to HELP us, by figuring out our plan for infiltrating the walker armory."

"Nice work, but I am way to blitzed to look at it now so goodnight."

"You should probably check in at a hospital," Sartos said to Carth who immediately jumped into his room and slammed the door behind him, "or not," Sartos muttered rolling his eyes.

Sleep came quickly and Sartos rested his head on the desk, the lamp casting a soft glow on his sleeping face shadowing the facial features who became more troubled with each passing second as the nightmares began anew.

In his dreams it appeared as if he was trapped inside a massive contraption, there were gears everywhere and jets of steam shooting out from unknown locations. The gears were moving closer with each second, boxing him in. He saw himself being crushed and mangled by the great evil gears which then started to break and fracture, eroding the whole machine from the inside. The machine fell to pieces, and all that was left was blackness interrupted only by Sartos's mangled body.

He woke up from the disturbing dream, but instead of attacking things he sat straight up and his chair and uncontrollably started reciting the poem.

"My mind is made of gears and all are clicking, clocking, ticking, tocking, moving inside my head, awake and in bed, making my imagination a conflagration of thoughts and dreams and everything that's dark and evil is a walled up and balled up inside my brain and though I disdain every single thing that I encounter in my sleep I still keep on seeing them day after day and but there is no way to have them stay away but they are merely cogs and gears dislodged and twisted disrupting all my dreams inside my clicking, clocking, ticking, tocking, mind." That was when he diverged from the original saying. "But the gears and cogs and broken, missing, fractured, twisting up inside my mind. As they twists it hurts it hurts my mind the pain the pain burning inside it burns IT BURNS IT BURNS IT HURTS, I'm scared im frightened help me help me help me HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME!"

It was then that he truly awoke and regained control of his sense and speech. He could see Carth standing to his side, his eyes were wide and staring Sartos.

"Good morning," he said cautiously, "you okay there?"

Sartos was sweating and he wiped his brow with his hoof, "no I'm not, I – I don't know what happened, but it scares me, it really, really scares me Carth."

Carth gave him a sympathetic look and patted him on the back.

"Hey there, you know when I used to get scared I sang a song, and old song, back from the days before the revolution, all you have to do is input your name and sing along."

Carth gave him a broad smile and much to Sartos's discontent started singing.

"My name is Caaaarth, and I am here to say."

"Oh gods no," Sartos muttered.

"I'm gonna make you smile and I will brighten up your daaaaaaaaaay"

"No, that's really not necessary."

"It doesn't matter now, if you are sad or blue," Carth outlined a frown on his face.

"Cause cheering up my friends is just what I am here to do!"

Carth ran out into the hallway and Sartos begrudgingly followed. In the hallway there were rows of other hotel rooms, and a long spiral staircase leading all the way down to the lobby.

Carth leapt on the banister of the staircase and slid down while singing, "Cause I love to make you smile smile smiiiiiiiAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HHHHHH!" Carth's song turned into a scream as he slid off the end of the banister at the bottom, crashed into a wall and bounced off the wall into a large cart of food being carried by a hotel bellcolt, who immediately fell over along with Carth and the food cart.

Sartos rushed down the stairs to find Carth sprawled on the floor under a food cart and a disoriented bellcolt, everyone in the lobby was staring at Carth appalled.

"Are you okay?" Sartos asked tentatively.

"NO I'M NOT OKAY!" Carth snapped back, "I WAS TRYING TO GET THE WHOLE HOTEL TO DO A SONG AND DANCE ROUTINE, BUT NOOOOOO THIS DAMN WALL HAD TO STOP ME! THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HEARTFELT AND CAMPY, NOW ITS JUST A BUCKING TRAINWRECK!"

Carth got to his hooves, dusted himself off and stormed out of the hotel muttering something undistinguishable but angry.

"Sorry about that," Sartos said cringing, "just my friend, well not really a friend more of a colleague," and with that he retreated back up the stairs.

An hour or so later Carth opened the door and walked into the room looking much happier than before.

"Ready to do some work," Sartos asked.

"Indeed I am," Carth said peering over Sartos's shoulder at the desk, "however as pretty as that map of the facility is unmarked, it wont help us get in."

It was true, the map of the walker armory was well drawn and the product of many hours staring at the facility from afar, however there were no drawings of any sort to indicate their plan of action.

"I've been thinking for hours but I can't find a way in," Sartos complained, "the whole facility is walled off by a 15 foot barbed wire fence, and constantly patrolled by guards right outside the fence. The only way in is a checkpoint guarded by 15 soldiers. Even if we got through the fence the only entrances to the building itself are the massive hanger doors on each side which sound like a thunderstorm when they open and are too thick to cut through with a blowtorch.

I thought of digging under into the building itself but the floor is thick steel so that walkers don't crush through it with their feet, too thick for a blowtorch."

"Is the roof this thick?" Carth inquired.

"No but we cant fly on top of it, like as we might we cant remove our back covers, they can only be removed with a special apparatus back home."

"I'm not talking about wings, I'm talking about vacuum balloons."

"Ha" Sartos laughed "Those zepplins are going to be even harder to steal, and even if we did how would we fly it, we have no idea, not to mention they need a large crew to operate."

"I'm not talking about zepplins, the weather service has several small balloons no larger than hot air balloons. They carry baskets that fit 3 ponies, or two ponies and a bunch of equipment. The service uses them to look at approaching weather patterns, and for a small bribe they might give one up to us. My plan is to hover it above the roof just out of sight, unlike hot air balloons they don't have burners so they are silent. Then we use grapples to get down to the roof and cut our way through."

Sartos pondered it for a moment, looking like he was about to make an objection but corrected it himself.

Eventually he spoke, "you know sometimes it pisses me off how useful you can be when you want to."

Carth smiled, "Frankly Sartos, I don't think there is a single thing I can do that won't piss you off in some way."

As it neared sundown Carth and Sartos proceeded to the weather service building, inside they found a bored looking pony working the desk, he seemed young, and probably poor, perfect for a bribe.

The process was simple, he took the money and led them out to a small hanger storing several metal balls. They didn't look like much, just large balls of basalt fiber stored on massive racks in the hanger. But as soon as he rolled one out and pumped out the air it started to rise. It struggled to escape the hold of the vacuum hose but the bribed worker quickly and deftly attached a small basket to it.

"Now listen," the bribed worker instructed them, "I don't know if you've ever flown a balloon but it aint easy, you have to look for air currents to carry it along, finding them is the hard part."

They had never flown a balloon but as pegasi they had spent a lifetime of searching through air currents to get a good flight.

"Anyway to rise just use the vacuum pump in the center of the basket to take air out, to lower it use the pump to put air in. I don't know what you're doing and I don't care but please just try to bring it back before sunrise tomorrow."

"Thanks," Sartos said swinging into the basket along with the gear which consisted of 2 masks, 2 harnesses with blowtorches, a long spool of cord, and 2 pistols. Carth jumped in as well as then pumped more air out of the sphere, and the balloon took off into the cold night air.

Carth deftly adjusted the vacuum pump and the balloon rose or fell into air currents each dragging it towards their objective. The moon was hidden in the sky and the balloon was invisible against the night sky. Below them the city was a canvas of lights each one a tiny spark in the dark landscape. Each one a home, a person, a story, lost in the dark, cold, and endlessly turning gears that were the city.

"Are we getting close?" Sartos called to Carth, his voiced carried away on the wind.

Carth called back "We're there!" His voice filled with excitement.

Ahead of them large dark figure loomed ahead, Carth brought the balloon out of the air current and it slowly drifted to a halt 20 feet above the roof of the walker armory.

Sartos put on his harness and Carth did the same, they awkwardly fit their legs through the holes and latched it up over their backs. They then holstered their pistols at their belts and unraveled a long spool of cable. Sartos pulled out two ends with his mouth, the heavy steel cable end attached right to the back of his and Carth's harnesses. After attaching it Sartos jumped off the side of the balloon.

The special spool of cable allowed Sartos to descend at a slow pace, a dark shape hidden in the night air slowly dropping and touching down on the curving metal roof. Upon hitting the roof he turned his blowtorch on, pulled a welding mask attached to the harness over his eyes and began cutting through the roof. Carth descended to meet him before he was done cutting through. As he finished a large chunk of the roof fell away but Carth caught it quickly between his hooves. He lifted the heavy piece of metal away with a grunt and Sartos slipped through the hole.

The Cavernous building was filled large machinery which made the building buzz like a hornets nest at day. However now the hornets had fallen silent, and there was not a sound except Sartos's breathing as he descended from the ceiling still attached to the cable in the waiting balloon.

It was dark in there, and Sartos could barely see the long catwalk which he descended onto. The sleeping husks of walkers hung along the outside of the catwalks supported by scaffolding. Catwalks hung along both sides of the building one every few feet so the workers could reach every part of the hanging walkers to do maintenance on them.

On the ground floor massive eight legged walkers took up the space between the two massive racks of bipedal walkers on each wall. Some of them had towers or cannons so tall they nearly reached the massive ceiling above them. One charred husk of a walker was there. Burn marks were all over it, the deck had holes in it and two massive burnt and broken cannons lay in charred pieces across the deck. From beneath the burnt hull one could barely make out the painting labeling it the _Wolf_.

Sartos stood on the highest catwalk waiting for Carth to slowly descend beside him. They relinquished their cables at the catwalk, when they wished to return they would be able to retract when tugged and carry them back up to the balloon.

Carth reached into his bag and pulled out a ski mask which he slipped over his face, Sartos did the same.

"Okay here is what we do," Sartos told Carth his voice trembling, his night terrors had always given him a childish fear of the dark. "We get down to the first floor, there are some offices along the opposite wall I can see. Look for the one that says "Product Deployment" that's the one we want."

"Got it," Carth said a little too loudly, his voiced echoed throught the building, he gave Sartos an awkward smile which he had to squint to see.

They descended several rather rickety flights of stairs past heaps of tangled up machinery, harnesses, and coal.

Eventually they made it to the ground floor, the cold steel rang in harsh tones with every step they took. Sartos imagined the cacophony of hoof steps that must be heard there in the day.

While at first glance it might seem like the building was completely occupied with machinery, behind the walls there lay a long systems of hallways and offices like rat tunnels. Strangely enough rat like would be the best adjective for the workers of the earth pony military bureaucracy working the offices behind those walls.

They proceeded to the wall opposite the catwalk they had came from and went through one of the doors leading out of it and came into an unlit white hallway. Even though it was unlit the clear white plaster walls managed to shine. Within the hallway there were what seemed to be an endless amount of corridors of office doors. It seemed a miracle that they could be packed into the tight space of the facility's walls.

Fortunately there were signs and office numbers, Sartos merely had glance, or in reality squint, at the sign plastered on the wall to know that the second floor, right corridor housed the office of product deployment. Or in layponies terms, "where we send our walkers."

They walked up a small flight of stairs and to the right and reached a small group of offices, one had the exact words they were looking for plastered on it. However it came as a surprise to them when they found the door was unlocked. It was even more of a surprise when they opened the door and found out why.

Sitting at the desk in the room with a dim lamp shining light down on some papers was a pony. Not anypony, the pony from the photo on the train, the one whose wife they had met, and the one they had been given permission to kill if necessary to extract information. Instead of being surprised and staring with a dropped jaw like the pony at the desk was doing (or for that matter trying to formulate a joke about the situation like Carth was doing) Sartos took advantage of the opportunity and changed his plans. He quickly pulled his gun out then ran over to the desk and smashed the ponies face onto his papers.

Unfortunately he was not fast enough to stop the pony from calling for help. Normally that would have had no effect his voice being contained within the building to far for anyone to hear. However he spoke, or rather yelled, near one of the brass tubes connecting the entire building and operating as an alarm and PA system. His sound echoed throughout the brass tubes all the way to the entry checkpoint outside, who immediately harnessed their rifles.

"Buck!" Sartos yelled, "that's it no screwing around open the file cabinet and get me all your records of walker production and deployment NOW!" He yelled at the pony.

The pony did as he was told and starting rooting through the file cabinets.

"Looks like it was a bad day to stay late at the office," Carth said smiling, but his faced changed to dismay as he saw the other ponies unchanged reactions and cursed himself for being to late on the delivery.

"Stop screwing around and put the files he gives you in the bag," Sartos ordered Carth.

The earth pony started throwing files at Carth who briefly checked them to make sure they were legitimate and then put them in the bag. He soon finished and looked at them expectantly. However his only answer was a sharp kick in the stomach which knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling.

"C'mon Carth lets leave the guards will be here soon," Sartos said taking his pistol in hoof and slinging the bag over his back.

"Just hold on one second," Carth said turning to face the pony sprawled on the floor.

"Um maybe not the best time to say this but, I bucked your wife," he said awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck before bolting out the door with Sartos and slamming it behind him.

Out in the hallway there were already five armed guards coming around from where they came. Fortunately for them there was another side hallway leading to the left which they quickly bolted into the guards following them. The hallway twisted and turned through section after section of office space, Carth yelled at each bend in the hallway.

"LEFT!RIGHT!RIGHT!LEFT!STRAIGHT STRAIGHT!LEFT!"

"SHUT UP!" Sartos yelled back at him.

Bullets were flying past them ricocheting off walls and colliding with doors. Carth turned around and fired off a few snap shots with his pistol, but Sartos pulled him back around by his collar and they resumed running. They finally came to a door at the end of the hallway.

They both ran at the door, crashing directly into it knocking it off its hinges and into a pile of machinery which had been previously obstructing it as with many of the doors in the facility.

The walker armory seemed a completely different room than before with the simple edition of light. The massive coal burner in one corner had been turned on casting a bright glow upon the facility. The hanging walkers cast massive shadows which fell upon the swarms of guards running around on the ground floor. As soon as they caught sight of Sartos and Carth on the lowest catwalk, they opened fire.

Some bullets careened off the railing, others missed them from behind as the five guards closed in on Carth and Sartos. They not only needed to get to the top catwalk to escape but to reach the other wall.

Carth ran off to the left on the catwalk and Sartos followed him, had he been there a second longer he would have surely been hit by a fusillade of bullets. They ran for a few yards, heads low to make themselves harder targets for the guards below who were running alongside them.

As they were running Carth tapped Sartos on the shoulder and motioned for Sartos to follow him. Then he jumped off the side of the railing, Sartos did the same. They both landed on the deck of the _Wolf_, which had been right next to that railing and the one on the opposite wall, a bridge between the two catwalks.

Carth's plan did not work as well as he had thought, because as soon as they landed they immediately crashed through the deck weakened by fire damage. It splintered beneath them as they hit it and they fell into what looked like a fire damaged engine room.

The walls were black with soot and the coal burners were silent. Charred shovels lay on corners and the multitudes of valves had fallen off or been burnt to a crisp.

Sartos fell unconscious for a few seconds and woke up feeling dazed. His vision was blurry and his head spinning, outside he heard the shouts of guards. It was dark inside the room, the only light was from gaps in the roof where light streamed in from the lit armory outside. He saw tiny dust particles dance in the light, however the dust soon turned to bullets as the guards reached the deck of the walker and began firing through the holes.

"Carth get up, get up!" Sartos shouted shaking his shoulder. Carth opened his eyes and came back into consciousness. They both got to their hooves and started running through the engine room.

Each hole in the deck which was once an island of light was now a pool of death, if either stepped in it they would be cut down by a storm of bullets. They ran like hell, dodging the light, up ahead there was a staircase but it was burnt to the ground. So they turned a corner and ran into a different room, then another, each room burned and blackened, each staircase charred or collapsed.

It was doubtful they were in the engine room, while they had passed more areas with coal burners and several boiler rooms, now they appeared to be in some kind of mess hall. They continued to run, in every room the bullets from above persisted, no matter what they dodged the light. Suddenly a piece of the deck gave way and three guards fell through and landed on a table in the mess. Sartos and Carth did not wait for them to get up and drew their pistols, shooting the guards to pieces.

They continued to run until they found a staircase which was intact. While some steps were missing and the banisters burned they still bounded up the staircase two steps at a time. They reached the top and opened the hatch to find themselves back on the deck.

There was a guard in front of them, still looking down through a hole in the deck, Sartos took more time to aim for that shot. Then they walked across the deck, it seemed odd in the midst of all that to be walking, yet they did not want to fall through again. So they walked on briskly striding forward until they got to the edge of the deck where they leapt off onto the catwalk and resumed their hectic running.

The guards quickly caught sight of them again and ran after them leaping off the deck onto the catwalk in the same manner as they had, although several fell through the deck trying. Sartos and Carth had begun climbing Stairways to the top but the guards were firing from beneath them. A bullet whizzed by Sartos's ear making him pin them back on his head.

"Sartos, their gonna hit us any second," Carth said, his voice betrayed his fear, something rare for Carth, "I can hold them off go on up and bring them down to me okay."

Sartos opened his mouth to object but closed it again seeing the look on Carth's face. Carth slowly stopped running while Sartos ran up ahead, a guard came up the stairs onto the Catwalk they were on but Carth shot him the moment he came in view. Then Carth jumped off the side of the railing and onto a bipedal walker hanging right by it.

He skidded onto the cockpit glass looking as if he were about to slip but held on, several more guards came up to his level but he ducked his head low and the bullets bounced off the walker's back. He fired his pistol several times at them, then opened up the glass and slipped inside the gunner's seat.

The cannon's slowly rotated to life, and Carth quickly grasped the control mechanism. He aimed the cannons at the floor of the factory which was swarming with guards and let a cannons shell fly.

It exploded on the floor and dozens of guards were enveloped in its flame, it also knocked into an already rather damaged leg of the _Wolf_ which collapsed making the whole thing shudder and collapse onto the floor.

Then he aimed a cannon shot taking the rotating guns all the way until they faced straight down, and fired on the catwalk directly beneath him.

It exploded and part of it became detached from the wall falling down to the floor along with many guards. The rest of it was barely attached by one side and swung out at a wide angle throwing many of the guards there off. It also was close enough to explode the walker's two legs. With the legs gone there was nothing supporting that area of the walker and the remaining upper body leaned forward until the cockpit was facing straight down.

But Carth was not done yet, for then he rotated the cannon all the way up to their maximum height and fired on the racks of bipedal walkers on the opposite wall. The one hit directly by the cannon simply exploded into scrap metal however the damage to the rack affected all the others. Many fell down to the ground, some of them crashing onto the decks of eight legged walkers. Some crashed into lower racks of walkers creating enough devastation to cause a small tax increase a month later so the military had money to repair them. Unfortunately for him Carth never got to see any of it, all he could see from the upside down cockpit was the floor.

Sartos had finally reached the top cat walk where the ends of the cables could be found, but he was not done yet. He attached his onto the back of his harness and then jumped of the side of the catwalk, the spool allowing him to slowly descend down to Carths level.

He landed right on the back of the walker with a thump and then climbed down until he was right at the cockpit. Below them a few resilient guards were still firing shots near them. Sartos opened up the canopy and Carth nearly spilled out but he held onto the chair behind him.

Sartos inched closer, pulled the cable forward and successfully latched it onto his harness. They tugged their cables in unison and both were immediately retracted all the way up through the hole in the roof and into the basket of the balloon. Carth immediately jumped to his hooves and pumped as much air as he could out of the balloon which took off into the sky.

It found an air current and slowly started drifting away from the walker armory. Sartos lay there on the floor of the basket for a few minutes, catching his breath while Carth undid his harness. Then Sartos got up and did the same then simply stared out of the basket, eventually so did Carth. It seemed like forever they sat there staring at the city, but then Carth laughed. It was a high pitch laugh, a giddy bubbly, and yet relieved laugh. He laugh for minutes on end, then so did Sartos, they simply stood there laughing as the balloon carried them through the night air.

**Well I hoped you enjoyed the chapter, sorry for making you wait for it, anyway review, even if you have reviewed before your new thoughts and feedback are always welcome, if you haven't already submitted an OC please do, I need them you know (just no more pegasi, I have too many pegasi OC's already.) Once again thanks fr reading and if anyone knows what happened to chapter 10 or has any idea how to get it back, PLEASE tell me.**


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